CBM 8-Bit Magazine Index: Commodore World

Telecommunications

Take some of the confusion Out,
of choosing modems, interface
and) on-line services

Graphics way

Copyrights 22222522

Plain talk about the legal issues | f
of copyrights and fair lise

EC ixialh, |

SOFTWARE SUPPORT
INTERNATIONAL

Thousands of Commodore Owners Choose Us
As Their One Stop Supplier . Here's Why!

%* Largest Selection of Commodore Software in the U.SA.!
After seven years in business, nobody in the Commodore
market is more committed to your Commodore than we are.
We have well over 200,000 pieces of hard to get software in
stock to service your every need. If you've heard of a product,
odds are that we can locate it for you. And, we stock most
major Commodore titles that are still in production.

> Hardware & Peripherals.
Although we can't get keyboards and disk drives any longer,
we can offer disks, modems, cables, interfaces, and much
more.

%* Un-Advertised Specials.
Our regular customers enjoy VIP service and great bargains
that are hard to pass up.

Expert Technical Support.
As a regular Software Support customer, you have access to
the most knowledgeable Commodore technical departments
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You'll havea hard time finding order takers as anxious to help
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* Fast Order Processing.
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* Walk In Sales Department.
We welcome visitors to our warehouse outlet. The same great
deals are available and best of all, no shipping charges.

»* Worldwide Distributor Of Major Products.
Ever hear of Maverick, Super Snapshot, Super 1750 Clone,
and the 1581 Toolkit? We've been actively involved in the
ground up production and world-wide distribution of these
and many other fine Commodore products.

%* Purchase From Us With Confidence.
We were very pleased when the Better Business Bureau came
to us and told us that our outstanding reputation qualified us
as members in their organization. We're here to stay, nota fly
by night, here today and gone tomorrow outfit.

+ Extensive Catalog.
Our contacts at other mail
order companies have told
us that producing a catalog
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- too expensive. We say it's
the least we can do for our
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ply call or write for your
ree copy.

Check Out These Examples...

GAMES
Leaderboard Golf...
Castle Wolfenstien Bundle .
Nord & Bert.
Zork 1-2-3 Bundle
Trump Castle Casino
Bureaucracy 128...
Defender of the Crown.
Beyond Zork 128
Three Stooges
Honeymooners
Adventure Creator
Wheel Fortune 1-2-3 Bundle

EDUCATIONAL
Dinosaurs ..
Stickybear Math
European Nations &
Typing Tutor 4
Word Attack
Reader Rabbit..
Sky Travel...
Lovejoy Prep For SAT.
Word Spinner.

PRODUCTIVITY
Super 1750 Clone...
Newsroom ...
Certificate Maker
Geos 4 v2...
Fast Load Cart.
Paperclip Ill 64/128
Printmaster Plus...
Superbase 64 or 128.
Bumper Sticker Make
Postcards ...
Outrageous Pages...
Bob's Term Pro 64...

ren 750
INE
ro]

Items Listed Above Do Not Include Shipping. Call Or Write For Your Free
Catalog Listing Hundreds Of Products And Special Offers For Your
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Suite A-10

Vancouver, Wa 98661
(206) 695-1393

ep 2 700 N.E. Andresen Rd.
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CALL TOLL FREE TODAY! 1-800-3 5 6-1 I 79

Major Credit Cards Accepted.

C O N T

ISSUE 4 .

COMMODORE

‘THE NEWS MAGAZINE FOR COMMODORE 64 & 126 USE!

General Manacer
Charles R. Christianson
°
Error
Doug Cotton
°
TecHnicat Eoitor
Mark Fellows
°
Aoverrisinc Sates
Charles A, Christianson
413-525-0023
°
Grapnic Arts
Doug Cotton
.4
Evectronic Pre-Press & PRINTING
Mansir/Holden, Inc.

°
On THe Cover
Commodore 64¢, Boca 144EW modem,
SwiftLink RS-232 Interface,
Cover art by Doug Cotton

Commodoro World is in no way affiliated with Commodoro
Business Machines, Inc, Commodore World is publishod 8
times annually by Creative Micro Designs, Inc., 15 Benton
Drive, East Longmeadow MA 01028-0646. Second-Class
Postago Pald at East Longmeadow MA. Application to mail at
Socond:-Class postago ratos is ponding at East Longmeadow,
MA. Annual subscription rate is US$29.95 for U.S. addresses,
US$35,95 for Canada or Mexico, USS45.95 for all EC Countrios,
‘and US$57..95 to all other addresses worldwide. Allsubscription
payments must bo provided in U.S. Dollars. Mail subscriptions
to CW Subscriptions, c/o Creative Micro Designs, Inc., P.O.
Box 646, East Longmeadow MA 01028-0646,

contents copyright © 1994 by Creative Micro
Inc., unless otherwise noted. No part of this
‘may bo printed or otherwise reproduced by any
moans without prior written consent from the publisher, All
programs publishod in this publication are for the porsonal uso
‘of the reador, and may not be copied or in any way distributed.
Allrights rasorved. Programming examples and routines in this
Issue which are presented for educational purposes may be
Usedin the creation of programs by the purchaser of this ofthis
magazine, provided credit for the routines is clearly presented
in elthar the program documentation, or the program itso.
Groative Micro Designs, Inc., assumes no responsibilty for
errors or omissions in editorial, program listings or advertising
content, Creative Micro Designs, Inc., doos not assumo any
liability tor advortisors' claims,

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: CW Addross
Changes, c/o Creative Micro Designs, Inc... P.O, Box 646, East
Longmeadow MA 01028-0646.

VOLUME 1 .

Features

18
23
25
30
31

TELECOMMUNICATIONS by Gaelyne Moranec
Get the big picture on modems, RS-232 interfaces, BBS's and networks,

A Glossary OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS TERMS by Gaelyne Moranec

What's a baud? Find out this and more in our extensive glossary of Telecom terms.

Bap Fite NAMES by Jim Butterfield

The Commodore guru gives advice on what to do about those annoying comma files,

Coprrichts: WHo Owns THe Richt To Copy? py Jeg’ Jones

Copyright information that every computer owner should know about.

Haro Tips: Buito A Simpte RS-232 INTERFACE by Doug Cotton

Connect standard RS-232 modems using this interface that you can build yourself.

Reviews

32
34
36
37

Sortware: Fun GRapHics MACHINE by Steve Vander Ark

Steve talks about the sofoware that put fun into working with graphies and text.

Games: MINIVIEWS by Sherry Freedline

Menace, The Amazing Spiderman, Marble Madni ‘ate or Die, and Laser Squad.

Harpware: Boca 144EW Fax/Data Monet py Brian Bell

How well does Boca's 14,400 bps modem perform with a Commodore?

Haroware: BocaMonem 2400 by tes Songa

A quick look at Boca's 2400 baud modem.

CoLumns

14
16
38
40
42
48
50
54

Just For STARTERS by Steve Vander Ark

Some general information about software and your computer,

ForeiGn EXCHANGE by Joseph Gaudt

Flash 8, the 8 MHz accellerator for the 64, finally comes to market,
GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION py Steve Vander Ark

Steve begins a mini-series on importing and exporting graphics.
GEOPROGRAMMIST by Maurice Randall

Macros play an important role in programming GEOS, and Maurice telly why.
Basic INSTINCTS by Gene Barker

The Alliance strikes back with added weapons and cloaking in STARSHIP COMBAT.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES by Gene Barker

Learn to auto-boot programs with AUTOBOOT 64.

PERIPHERAL VISION by Mark Fellows

SCSI Magic continues with an in-depth look at detecting SCSI errors.

Carrick DETECT ny
Off-line Mail Reader:

DEPARTMENTS
2 From tHe Eoiror 10 THe Connection See Our
4 BackTaLK 12. Top Tips
4 Error Correction 26 Conmmopore Trivia CHK-LIST
6 Just AsKinG 56 Apverniser’s INDEX Utility
8 On THe Horizon 56 Cuassiried Aos On Page 53
9 User Group Connection

NUMBER 4

From THe Epiror..:

The ongoing march of the computer industry never fails to amaze, and in many instances, amuse me. Take the recent
cover of Computer Shopper, which proclaimed that the Intel-based 486 computers are now obsolete. Ironically, the previous
issue of Computer Shopper was urging anyone looking for a new PC’ to buy one of the new AS6DX4-based machines, But
with the advent of ‘cheap’ Pentium-based machines just one month later, if you took the advice to get a 486DX4 then you
were already stuck with an ‘obsolete’ computer. Absolutely amazing.

Meanwhile, I've noticed alot of Amiga owners on the networks who are now running out to buy MS-DOS machines, and
in some cases, Macintosh computers. Apparently they can't deal with being ‘orphaned’ by Commodore, It seems odd to see
that one of the largest discussions in the Amiga area on G Amiga aspect, but on what operating
system to use on their newly purchased MS-DOS machine to get the closest possible AmigaDOS look and feel.

The operating system confusion continues, Apple started shipping System 7.5 for the Macintosh, but folks are reporting
some problems, That's standard fare for a new Mac System release, and Apple will probably issue a tune-up before long.
Chicago, the great new Windows version slated for release in late ‘94 has been renamed “Windows ‘95", no doubt to reflect
when it will really ship. Leave it to Bill Gates to turn a project delay into a marketing opportunity. IBM's new ‘personal’
version of OS/2, now called “Warp”, has just released, beating Windows to market; yet IBM is still sitting on a warehouse
fuullof PowerPC-based machines, afraid to release them until they have an operating system of their own to ship with them—
they sure don't want to give Microsoft more market power by shipping these machines with Windows NT.

Amidstallof this, itseems odd that everyone is fighting so fiercly over the $1000.00 and up market, while everyone ignores
the under $1000.00 market that our trusty old Commodore 64’s and 128's have had to fill for so many years. This seems
even more strange when you look beyond the ‘home’ market, and consider just how few computers there are to go around in
school classrooms. Has everyone forgotten what Apple proved in the ‘80s with the Apple IT? That if you put a lot of
inexpensive computers in classrooms, that the home market will be buying them up so that their kids can havea compatible
machine to work on when they're not in class? Apparently so.

Well, before I get too carried away on this line of thought, perhaps I should get back on track and tell you about this issue
of Commodore World. We've got a pretty packed issue this time, and it took some work to make everythingfit. Sadly, wehad
to drop Over the Edge for this issue; rest assured, it will be back next issue with some interesting commentary on Graphical
User Interfaces,

The issue's feature;
Gaelyne Moranecdid an outstanding job in trying to capsulize her wealth of telecommunications knowledge into this article
and the glossary of terms which follows it. Jeff Jones penned an interesting piece on the subject of copyrights that presents
some information which every computer user should be made aware of. We've also tacked in a small article from Jim
field on what to do about bad file names. Jim will be joining our staff of regular columnists next issue when he takes
over our Peripheral Vision column, Speaking of that, Mark Fellows, President of CMD and designer of the CMD HD Hard
Drives, has prepared the current column on SCSI device errors that you'll find in this issue's Peripheral Visions. We'll
continue the SCSI Magic series next issue, but we'll have to move it to a new column.

There's more trivia from Jim Brain in this issue, and the latest upgrade to Starship Combat; you'll also see a machine
Language autoboot utility, and a schematic for building an RS-232 interface. News of the Flash 8 accelerator shows up in
this issue's Foreign Exchange, and some general info about software comes from Steve Vander Ark in Just for Starters, Si
also begins an excursion into the land of importing and exporting in his Graphic Interpretation column, plus provide
with areview on Fun Graphics Machine. We ve got hardware reviews on Boca modems, and more miniviews on some games
that are still around, As I said, it's a pretty packed issue, so don't stop here—dig in!

Cotton

modore World Editor

’s a lot of great information on modems, modem interfaces, and on-line services located in thi

COMMODORE WORLD 2 Issue 4

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1200 Commodore Printer - Complete
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1350 Mouse - New, unboxed -$29.95

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6128 to Magnavox/1084 (Specity) 14.95
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Disk Notcher 4.95
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ome Home Accounting 64.95
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28

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Kraft Triple Trackball 40.00
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OUR POLICIES

‘No walting for your orders to ship.
Orders in by 2PM go out the same day.
Second Day & Overnight shipping Is
available, International orders are
Shipped by Alr Parcel Post, UPS or DHL.
Domestic orders are shipped UPS.
‘+All orders are subject to credit card
verification +
+All pices subject to change *

Supplies are limited and on a first-come
tirst-sorve basis. We accept Visa, Master
Card, and Discover. Wo also ship COD,
accepting Cash, Certified Check, of
Money Order, Software and accessories
sipping fs $0.00. Hardware shipping Is
$6.00 for small items. Call for larger
items (le. Computers). COD add $5.00.
Minimum COD order Is $50.00. Canadian,
APO, & Intemational orders are welcome.
We will bill only tor actual shipping
charges & insurance at time of order.
15% re-stocking fee on all returns not
{ exchanged. Shipping is NOT refundable.

(© Copyight 1994, techWnlers Inc. AI Rin Reserved

Volume 1, Number 4 3 COMMODORE WORLD

GJACKTALK

COMMODORE WORLD READERS SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS

It Just Keeps Getting Better

To Whom It May Concern:

Just got my third issue of your magazine and
wanted to express to you how much | enjoyed it.
I thought the first two issues were excellent but
thislastissue blew them both away. ItwasGREAT!

I really enjoy your keeping us abreast of the
things going on with Commodore and all and
really look forward to reviews on products. One
of the things I enjoy the most is the articles on
“Hard Tips”. This was one of the things I enjoyed
the most with the now defunct Commodore
Magazine. I also enjoy the Foreign Exchange
section as well as all the other articles.

Congratulations on this fine publication and
please keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Dan Koleski

Bad Internet Connections

Dear Sirs:

Thavejust received my first issue ofCommodore
World magazine and it is wonderful. Of course,
you guys (and gals) knew thatalready, sol'll get to
the details.

I wanted to offer some insights and critiques
on various articles throughout the magazine,
while offering some of my own tips. I've enclosed
my direct responses to various columns in here; 1
hope they will be forwarded to the correct
departments.

One critique that doesn’t look like it belongs
under any of the individual sections has to do
with the feature article on Internet. The author,
while providinga list ofthe various on-line services
that feature access in varying degrees to Internet,
fails to mention that both America On-Line and
Prodigy are for the MS-DOS/Windows and
Macintosh computer platforms only and require
specialized software for each machine similar to
the way Q-Link is set up for the Commodore
machines. Therefore, until either orboth services
have their programmers write special term

COMMODORE WORLD

software for our Commodore machines (which |
don’t see happening anytime soon unless the
Government intervenes), both are useless for
Commodore 64/128 owners (unless they also
own one of the above mentioned computers).

Anyway, keep up the great work on CW, and
am looking forward to being a long-time
subscriber.

Sincerely yours,
Ray Paternostro, Jr.

Sorry forthe oversight. Luckily, wegot asecond chance,
since this Issue's feature talks about on-line services
as well, And yes, we remembered.

A Vander Ark Fan?

Dear Commodore World,

Just a short note to say THANKS for a great
magazine. Commodore World is the best
Commodore specific magazine available today.
I've been a long time 128 user, and really enjoy
computing on my 128 with GEOS 2.0. I've read
Steve Vander Ark’s GEOS columns in both RUN
and COMPUTE GAZE
his Graphic Interpretation column in
Commodore World.

E, and was glad to see

Sincerely,
Russ Tahsler

Forget Beginners? NEVER!

First, I want to say how much I admire you folks
for embarking on a venture like Commodore
World. On the basis of your “Printers” article in
the first issue, I purchased an Epson Stylus 800
inkjet printerandam very pleased withtheresults.
I'm anxiously awaiting delivery of Perfect Print
and Geocable so I can really put it through its
paces. Thanks for helping me keep this machine
alive and kickin’.

Finally, several of your readers have made a
pitch to gear Commodore World primarily tothe

experienced user/programmer—since there
n’tany new users of the old machines. Please!
Don'tdoit!| got my C128 fromaworkmate who'd
had it in storage for years. | can’t be the only one.
I find the machine to be perfect for my simple
needs—but I'm learning more about it all the
time, and having a great time doing so. Pleas
don’t assume that your readers all have 10 or
xperience with Commodore. That's
all, but thanks again for giving me something
that | really look forward to every 6 weeks or so.
Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
John P. LaDez

Nottoworry, John, We regularly get letters and phone
calls from users just getting started on Commodores,
Whether they got their machine from a friend, bought
it at a yard sale or flea market, or just finally got
around to pulling it out of the attic, there seems to be
no shortage of new users, And because our market no
longer has the luxury of dozens of books on using and
programming the 64/128, there's a definite need for
magazines such as ours to provideinformation geared
to them,

“I
§)

= RR o F
CORRECTION

InCommodore World Issue 3, wesomehow
managed to omit some information about
Digimaster in the review. The missing
information was the info paragraph which
normally appears just before the review text
itself. Here's the text that should have
appeared:

Digimaster, written by Chris Brenner; $34.95;
published by Autumn Technologies and
distributed through Creative Micro Designs,
Inc., P.O. Box 646, East Longmeadow MA
01028, (413) 525-0023.

Issue 4

dieHard

the Flyer for commodore 8bitters

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Volume 1, Number 4 5 COMMODORE WORLD

Just ASKING

THE COMMODORE WORLD STAFF LOOKS FOR ANSWERS TO USERS’ QUESTIONS

I need assistance hooking up a CBM
model 8032p printer that was used
with the old PET computers. Also, is
there any way to use this printer with GEOS?
Brian Ardoin
DieHard Commodore User

To attach a CBM 8032 model printer
toa Commodore 64 or 128 you'll need
an IEEE-488 parallel interface.
According to the most recent information I have,
the following are still available new from Skyles
Electric Works, ( IEEE Flash!
[C-64] ($79.00) and Quicksilver 128 [C-128]
($99.00). I'm not aware of any dr

sforG

touse these printers. Considering the high cost of

the interface you'll need, the inability to use the
printer with GEOS, and the overall print qu
and age of the 8032 printers, I'd consider picking
up a low-cost 9-pin printer instead.

I use my C-64 a lot for applications
Lalso love to play games on
. However, after using the
joystick for a a while, my hand and wrist start
hurting. Do you know of a Nintendo-type
controller that can be used on the C-64? No
joystick, just buttons to press.

David Martinez

Well, the short answer to that is yes
and no. I noticed a tip in a game
magazine a few months back that
mentioned youcan use joysticks for Commodore
computers on Sega Genesis game machines. This
made me wonder if the reverse was also true.
Now, the standard Genesis controller pad has
three more buttons than a Commodore joystick,
and this fact is what made me wonder if the
controller would be a problem to use on a
Commodore. Deciding that the worst I could do
was blow a fuse, I borrowed a Genesis controller
pad and gave ita shot.
It did in fact work—the directional buttons all

corresponded correctly, and the B button was

COMMODORE WORLD

equivalent to the standard joystick fire button.
But I did notice a problem: part of the keyboard
nolonger worked when thecontrollerwas plugged
into joystick port 1. This means that some of the
extra function: the pad are interfering with
other lines, and this might cause eventual failure
of the 1/0 chip that controls the keyboard and
joystick port.

At this point, I wouldn't suggest using such a
controller. However, since controllers like this
are relatively cheap and easily available locally,
we'll present simple modifications toadapt these
for use ona Commodore in next issue's Hard Tips
column.

Tuse G 128 v2.0 for my business.

GeoCale, geoFile and geoWrite are

really great programs for what I need.

However, In

[128] that will allow multiple printouts. 1

understand that Perfect Print by CMD does

multiple printouts, but only in High Quality

mode. I need this for Draft or NLQ modes. There

is a program called “WRITEPATCH” on GEnie,

butitonly workson geoWrite 64. Doyouknow of
a program or patch that could help?

Russ Tahsler

rogram or patch for geoWrite

[believe that there is a desk accessory
for printing called TEXTPRINT that
will do what you're looking for. You

can find the latest version of this on GEnie, file
number 14110, filename TEXTPRNTV2.SDA,
Since it sounds like you're a GEnie member
already, you might ask S.EYRSE who uploaded
this file for details, Steve is very knowledgable
about GEOS and printers, so he may have other
suggestions or recommendations.

Ihave been workingin CP/M forsome
years and own a C128D with PPI
RAMDrive and CMD FD-2000, plus
two 1571 drives, In the manual for the FD-2000,
itstates, “CMDis currently looking fora driver or
patch that willenablethe useof 1.6MBand3.2MB
disks under CP/M.” You can of course do this on
aCMD HD drive but I was not aware of thisat the
time or] would have purchased an HD (the price
was over [Australian] $1000 at the time).
know howto patch CP/M with SID or Edfil
so if | was given the patch information and full
details of where to install same I could hand the
job. Any help you can give me would be very
welcome.

Alastair Hay

Unfortunately, there isn'tany solution

in sight. CP/M programmers are even

more rare than CP/M users, and CMD.
hasn't located any third party capable of and
willing to create the necessary patches.

»

JUST ASK!

Having trouble getting your system to
do what you want it to, or think you've
got something wrong with your
hardware? Just Asking may be able to
help find a solution, or get you pointed
in the right direction, Send your
questions to:

CW Just Asking

c/o Creative Micro Designs, Inc.
P.O. Box 646

East Longmeadow, MA 01028-0646

Issue 4

Computer Bargain Store

One of the Largest Commodore Selections in America Since 1983
Large Selection of NEW and USED Commodore
Hardware, Software and Accessories
Like-New C128-D Computer w/ Built-in 1571 driv
30 day guar. ONLY $159 + $10 s/h (Con

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or Call (801) 466-8084 (4-7 PM MST)

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(307) 742-3275

Just A Few 128D’s Lert
65 Double sided GEOS Picture Disks............ $65.00
32 Double sided Stereo SID disks ... $35.00

C128 Software!

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, The Phoenix Network

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= Online C Jomputer Entertainment and Services To The Natio .
WHO WE ARE WHAT WE OFFER HOW TO JOIN.

—“eE-64 f—

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& PLus/4

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PAD EDR eli RAVE REVIEWS IN CONBUTETS
SAERANENTO, GA 95823 croup 'newstertens

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OUR OWN SUPPORT BBS WITH OVER 2,000 FILES FOR YOU
TO DOWNLOAD, CALL 1-916-395-9733 AT 306 BAUD To
TO 14,406 BAUD, SUBSCRIBERS HAVE ACCESS TO BOTH
INTERNET AND FIDONET MESSAGE AREAS FOR THE 64/128.
OVER 150 NEW MESSAGES DAILY.

SOON TO CONE: $e opsnanceacan®cozyun OF
COMMODORE NETWORK OF AUSTRALIA

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Glen Doty/Phoenix1 - Chief Engineer (Non-Primetime rates 6pm-7am) accessed through your local Sprint/

OUR GOAL * Visa & Mastercard Accepted Telenet phone number. If you are
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users can meetin a congenialatmosphere, Positive Proof of age required for full sign-on instructions:
play games, share information, andgener- | * FREE Internet Access 1-800-869-1155
ally have fun. * Shareware/Freeware Libraries for: If you are familiar with Sprint

OUR POLICY Commodore, Amiga, PC, Mac access, do the following:

So long as we have a single user of ANY * BEST Live Action Trivia Games Around 1. Have your credit card ready
type of computer online, we will provide * Over 100 Special Interest Forum Areas Full access is not granted
that user with all the support and informa- | * ASK about Creetg a Forum Area for your Unless you provide credit info.
tion that we possibly can! cwrveroup™ 2. At the CONNECT type in the

* TRADEWARS 2002 Play the hottest new

foll din
BBS game. Fully Commodore compatible. llowing depending on your

. baud rate:
The Phoenix Network * Some of the Best & Brightest members of Pen ia sfotunissD =ratins:
P.O. Box 30757 Q-Link! Maybe even someone you know: 2400 baud: @D <return>
Flagstaff, AZ 86003-0757 Sholom Cicada Snickers/CatsO 3. At Terminal = type: D1

a % A KellyM8 DC Star Keorb i
800-869-1155 Voice MsOgeny She Elf Sir Fitz 4. At the @ sign type

800-869-1168 Fax Mystique LtWorf Julia a: Fai ei ai
=a S>. Plus many many more! Join us! Meet some f Shaw. ee thetho en
KO i old friends and make new ones too! lonacesssilo The Phoenix,
Volume 1, Number 4 bd COMMODORE WORLD

Din

COMMODORE AND Compu

CBM Liquidation Still Unsettled
A full five months after
assets remains unsettled, It does appear that the end of the
s the field of choices has been narrowed

Commodore's

waiting periodisin sight, howev
toCommodoreU.K.,and CEI (a Florida-based company). A third company,
based in Europe, is reportedly looking into placing a bid, but has not yet
done so. At press time, new rumors indicated that the previously private

bidding process was now to become public, with one last round of bids to
begin immediately, Our sources, however, indicate that this is not the case.
Otheraspects ofthe liquidation have also come to light in the past few days,
so Commodore World will be providing a more in-depth update in our next
issue. And, who knows? Maybe we'll even have some clue as to who the next

company to ignore us 8-bitters will be.

Grapevine Ceases Operation
The Grapevine Group, well known in Commodore circles as a suppli

both new and refurbished Commodore equipment and parts, recently
transferredall remaining inventory toanew corporation, Global Upgrade
Ine, The new company will focus on repairs and upgrades, and also plans
to serve as a distributor of parts to other existing dealer
facilities, Dealers and other interested parties are urged to contact Global
Upgrades forinformation concerningavailability and pricingofequipment
and parts. Global Upgrades, Inc,, 121 West Nyack Road, Suite 6, Nanuet NY
10954. (914) 624-3200, (914) 624-3239 (fax).

and repair

CMD Releases geoCable II

The new geoCable II has
recently started shipping from
CMD. It connects printers
equipped with a standard
Centronics port to the
Commodore 64/128 User port
for high-speed parallel printing
with GEOS andothergeoCable-
compatible softy
version of the geoCable
provide through port that allow you to keep another
User port device (such asa modem) attached atall times. The switch toggles
the User port output between the printer port and
add to the versatility of this device
cable, which attaches to a DB-2
circuit board. The standa

re. This

ass-through port. To
standard ‘PC’ parallel printer
oCable IL
rd unit comes supplied with a 6 fi. printer cable

it uses

connector located on the ¢

adisk contain 'OS printer drivers, and an installation/user's n
for $29.00, A version supplied with a 15 ft. printer cable sells for $34.00.
Creative Micro Designs, Inc,, P.O, Box 646, East Longmeadow MA 010 :
(413). 525-0023 (information), (800) 638-3263 (orders), (413) 0147 (fax),

COMMODORE WORLD

announcing liquidation, the disposition of

er of

R INDUSTRY News

GEnie’s Commodore RT Makes Special Offer
The Commodore RT on GEnie is offering $50.00 worth of free services
during the first month tonew members, Inaddition to this special offer, the
Commodore RT is also sponsoring an upload contest from October 16
through December 31, 1994. The contest offers numerous weekly prizes of
free time for weekly winners, plus hundreds of dollars worth of free time
and gift certificates to be awarded to the top five uploaders over the length
of the entire contest,
GEnie is the official support network for CMD, GEOS, Color 64 BBS,
Parsee, plus other companies, software and shareware authors. The

Commodore RoundTable provides a vast resource of public domain
software, with over 16,000 files uploaded for the Commodore 64, 128, and
even the Plus/4. In addition to the file libraries, Commodore users can
participate in nightly Real Time Conferences (RTCs), multi-player games,
an active message area, special conferences with exciting guests, games,
and more. Enjoy the entire breadth and wealth of personal computing with
all the news, features, games, information and other special interests
available on GEnie.

Founded in 1985, GEnie is an on-line information service consisting of
hundreds of RoundTables (Ri le around the world, Each
RoundTable is focused on a specific area of interest such as Commodore
computers, IBM computers, cars, movies, family issues, medical, law,
military and banking ete.

The monthly subscription fee i:
four hours of standard connect time us:
additional hour is only $3.00 per hour.

For more information concerning rates, local access numbers (including
800 numbers forthosein rural areas), additional servicesand other charges,
and to join GEnie, refer to the information below, or nie Client
Services toll-free at: 1-800-6:

5 per month which includes up to
¢ at 300-1200-2400 baud, Each

GEnie Sign-up Procedure:
1. Set your terminal program for half-duplex (local echo) at 2400 baud.
Recommended communications parameters: 8 bits, no parity
stop bit (8-N-1).
. With your modem, dial toll-free in the U.
Canada at 1-800-387-8330,
. Upon connection, type HHH
At the U#= prompt, type JOINGENIE and press <RETURN>
At the offer code prompt enter DHE524 to get this special offer.
5. Have a major credit card ready. In the U.S, you mi
checking account number. There is a $2.00 monthly fe
accounts. In Canada, VISA and MasterCard only.
7. Instant computerized verification will get you on GEnie without waiting.
Type COMMODORE at any GEnie menu to move directly to the
Commodore RT.

w

ilso use your
for all checking

Issue 4

User Group CONNECTION

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL USER GROUP

IOWA

Commodore User's Group, Ames Region
PO Box 2302

Ames, IA 50010-2302

LOUISIANA

Acadiana Commodore Computer Club
416 Dale Street

Lafeyette, LA 70501

New Orleans Commodore Klub (N.0.C.K.)
P.O. Box 850306
New Orleans, LA 70185-0306

MICHIGAN

Down River Commodore Group
PO Box 1277

Southgate, MI 48195

OF SOFTWARE
64/128

NEW JERSEY
Rancocas Valley Users Group
806 Windsor Drive
Cinnaminson, NJ 08077-3717

NEW YORK

Brentwood Commodore Computer Club
c/o Public Library

2nd&d4th St.

Brentwood, NY 11711

Hudson Valley Commodore Club

c/o G.T. Gallagher

620 Plainfield St.

Kingston, NY 12401

TEXAS

Metroplex Commodore Comp. Grp.
P.O. Box 813

Bedford, TX 76095

; FREE SOFTWARE
nd you a FREE issue of

WASHINGTON
University of Washington CCUG
P.O. Box 25878

Seattle, WA 98125

Attention User Groups!

Send us your group's name, contact
person’s name and phone number,
when and where you meet, number of
members, andan address where users
can write to you. Please send your
group info to:

CW UG Connection

c/o Creative Micro Designs, Inc.
P.O, Box 646

East Longmeadow, MA 01028-0646

No kidding. Call 1-800-831-2694
now or mail your valuable FREE SOFT-
WARE CERTIFICATE, and we'll send
you a FREE issue of LOADSTAR , the
Commodore” software subscription, That
way, you can explore our revolutionary
“subseribe-to-a-disk-of-software” concept
for yourself!

Each monthly issue contains 7-10
programs and features on two 5.25" disks
or one 3.5" disk. Imagine getting features
like these on every issue:

* Utilities *Puzzles *Games

“Applications *Tutorials *Graphies

*Music *Reviews and more!
coo} 2/94

Volume 1, Number 4

318-221-8718
test service!

an complete

State/Province:

Zip/Mail Code:

fer available in U. S. and Canada

International-call for information. Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

COMMODORE WORLD

FOADSTAR

Compression is the encoding of text

or da

so that it takes up less room
in memory, or even in
telecommunications. Less space
usu

on di

lly equals less money. Anyone
who has spent time on-line knows:
the smaller the file, the cheaper it is
to download. If you spend 8 cents
per minute, you want to download
the compressed version in ten
instead of — the
uncompressed version in) 25
minutes, Thi why we ARC, ZIP
archive files and

minutes

groups of file

Advances in both the electronics
and compression industries have
opened whole new industries,

bee

of compression. Your
television set “downloads” data
from the air and shows it on the fly.
It could download a sharper, ¢
picture, but because of limitations
such as bandwidth (and that your
TV is designed for a decades old

signal) television won't get any
clearer without new standards of
compression and decompression.
Right now some digital cable boxes
download, decompress and route
hundreds of channels to homes,
mainly because ofnew SOFTWARE,
not new hardware,

In layman's terms, compression
will fit two or more channels worth
ofvideoandsoundinto one channel.
This means your local cable delivery
system can deliver more product—
and charg

youmore. As wemove to

COMMODORE WORLD

THE
CONNECTION

NeEws FROM COMMODORE-RELATED VENDORS AND PUBLISHERS

high definition television, the high
number of channels available may
decrease sin

high definition means
high information.

Frost & Sullivan project that the
need to compress motion video is
what will spur the expansion of the
data compression market to si
. The
market is projected to grow from
$101 million in 1993 to 1999 levels
of $667 million, ata compound rate
5 percent, That growth will
ion's

times its current size by 19

of

accelerate because of compre
key role in emerging applications
such as video conferencing, digital
television, electronic identification
systems, desktop publishin,
cellular, and digital answering
machines. Compression squeezes
the enormous amounts of data
involved in digital
transmission down so it will fit
through current delivery channels.

Commodore compression is just

video

as valuable to its users and
developers. LOADSTAR is joining
the compression craze. Though
we're not using anything as
ted as MPE nd JPE
we're compressing our programs as
wellas our text, As LOADSTAR has.
grown, so have the programs—
there's often no room for everything
we want on a particular issue. We
began compressing programs long
ago, and we're in search of better
and faster program crunchers that
are transparent to the C-64/128
operating system, Now we've added
text to the ranks of the compressed.
We can save 35% of the disk sp
used by documentation and
editorials, and route that space to

sophisti 3

ace

either more text or more programs.

A few issues ago we discussed
adding a third double-sided disk to
the magazine, which would have
been expensive, causing not only

production costs to go up, but
shipping. With the monthly
newsletter we're right on the weight
limit now. One more tenth of an
ounce and our shipping costs
skyrocket,

So beginning with issue #124, we
went compressed, Our new
presenter will read text from the dis
and decompress it on the fly, tot:

ly
transparent to the user, We thank
Gene Barker of Madman Software

for the compression scheme.

If any amming wizard out
there can create an executable
header that could be attached to the
beginning of ARC and/or.LZH files
that will self dissolve and RUN
programs packed with ARC250,
please create it and submit it to
LOADSTAR; we'll pay you for it.
This product would be essentially
an SDA module that writes to
memory instead of disk, then RUNs
the program. The module should

pros

NOT useimportant vectorsand zero
page locations, leaving the OS
quirky and buggy. If it does use zero
page extensively, it should repair it
afterwards. We'd also be interested
ina BLOAD tool that would LOAD
individually ARCed files into

memory and decompress them to

otherareasofmemory. These would
be extremely valuable tools for

programmers—and LOADSTAR.

- Jeff Jones
Associate Editor, LoadStar

10

—CEE-64

In the last month or so, I've been
takingalookatthesupportavailable
for our Commodores, and in all
honesty, I'm overwhelmed, When
companies such as Creative Micro
64 Alive!, Loadstar,
., have employees that

Designs, C
dieHard, e

ic
put in well over 12 to 14 hour days
working strictly on -- products, it's a
good sign that our computers are
doing well, and in fact, thriving.

Last night, I spent two or three
hours attending a conference on
GEnie with Doug Cotton and Mark
Fellows as the guests. | logged off
sometime around one o'clock in the
morning, andalthough Iwork “third
shift” on CEE-64 Alivel, I had to
wonder how Mark and Doug (who.
had already put in very full days at
CMD) could manage to stay awake
and alert after such a long day. The
questions asked of them weren't
necessarily easy ones to answer,
either. I found that even I w:
out afterwards!

I've just finished putting the final
touches on CEE-64 Alivel’s latest
issue, and I'm still on the natural
“high" [get when | finish an i
it seems the perfect time to writemy
column for Commodore World.
Actually, that’sthe excuse. The truth
is, this columnis the last item on my
“Get This Done or ELSE” list, and
soon as I have this slashed off, I can
go play. [have great plans to load up
The Fun Graphics Machine and
createa

worn

sue, SO

masterpieces, Once these
are done I'll load up my term

Issue 4

program and go check out my
favorite bulletin boards.

This is yet another thing I find
amazing about those of us who
spend our “working days” using our
Commodores—we rarely seem to
tire of them, and when not doing
something that could be called
“work”, we're often times found
“playing” using thesame computers!
Then again, if caught doing
something “fun”, T can always use
the excuse that I'm checking it out
for the magazine. Sometimes, leven
get away with i

Goodies packed into Issue #4
includea shareware program on our
newsletter disk called E:
whichn loading program from
any disk drive or other device very
easy, a demo of a new game, Phil
Heberer's soon to be famous GEOS
Cheesecake, and Jack Vander White
has resumed his popular BASIC
programming column again. Oh,
and of course we have a ton of
information in our littlebits and
otherbits columns this timearound.

Loader,

- Gaelyne Moranec
Editor, CEE-64 Alive!

ieHar

Hi, I'm Jerry Hill and you've never
heard of me. I'm the new Associate
Editor here at dieHard. That means
I get to do all the stuff Brian doesn't
want to. That also means I get tolet
you know a little bit about the
October issue of dieHard as well as
let a few of my personal skeletons
out of the closet, The October
dieHard is a caldron bubbling over
with programming spells like
Popcorn 64, an interesting little bite
of high-tech HIRES, and Random
Musicforthe VIC 20, suretogenerate
a few shrieks and wails (probably
from your family)! Ourfeaturespells
thismonth deal with “Grappling the
Great Gooey”, an in depth series on
GEOS for beginners, and
“Exterminating the 1541/71
Relative File Bug”. Throw all of our
regular features into the brew and

Volume 1, Number 4

you've got the makings of a fine
Halloweentreat. Topthewholething
off with some great digitized
Halloween graphics and a handful
of Print Shop graphics and
commodore just might come back
from the grave to see what we've
done with their machine! Some of
you may know me a little from
Q-Link (RIP!) or GEnie as Animal6
or Animal. Maybe not. Most of my
BBSing done locally in the
Tacoma/Seattle area until Brian
lured me to Boise with the promise
of getting paid to play with
commodores. I hope to be spending
alot moretimeonGEnieand Delphi
so I can stay in constant touch with
the telltale heartbeat of the
commodore nation. [bought my first
commodore 64 in 1988, hooked it
up to my little black-and-white TV,
and started using GEOS with one
disk drive! I bought a printer for our
second wedding anniversary. My
wife still hasn't forgiven me for that,
even though the printer helped her
through college. I've had just about
any job a guy could have and I must
say I never dreamed I would get to
turn my hobby intoa publishingjob.
I suppose that’s enough about me.
Maybel'll be backagain next month
(if Brian lets me out of my cage!).
Until then, never let the monsters
gain onyouandalwaysbea diellard!

Jerry Hill
Associate Editor, dieHard

FUN GRAPHICS

MACHINE

Last month we jumped into FGM's
LINKED SCREENS. You can work
on and print two or three screen:
across/down without linking, but
it’s a whole lot easier if you link the
screens and use them that way.
Linking the screens is provided to
make FGMing easier, not to
complicate it.

When screens are linked two-
across the third screen in memory is
availabletouseasa workspace, oras
a backup/oops screen. You can
COPY (pg. 18) one of the linked

screen areas to the third screen,
safely make changes toi there, then
COPY or TRANSFER it back to the
linked screen area. Or, you could
load an s. screen file to the third
n (perhaps fonts or graphi
To COPY a linked screen area to
the third screen, use this process:

1, Press SHIFT X to go to the third
screen,
Clear the third screen (SH CTRL
£). “OPY must find a
clearscreen area to copy to. NOTE:
Ifany other screen isalsoclear place
anxorsomething onit, else COPY
may place the copy there instead.
. Press x to go back to the linked
screens. Continue pressing x until
the linked screen area you want to
COPY is visible.
4, Pressc. Thescreenshouldreverse/
unreverse to indicate that the
screen has been copied.
Press SHIFT X to go back to the
third screen.

w

To COPY the third screen back to
the linked screen area, clear the
linked screen area where you want
the third screen to go, then goto the
third screen and press C. Or, use
GRAB (pg. 23), TRANSFER (pg. 44),
or ADJUST’s CAPTURE (pg. 41) to
move selected areas of the third
screen to the other screen area

Now let's touch on down-linking
the
the screens you'll have three single
stacked” oneovertheother.
Marginand wordwrapareavailable.
One important use for this would be
if you wanted to do a column for a
newsletter. When you save down-
linked screens FGM uses the third
ter in the filename as a key to
its location (see pgs. 13-14). If you
give a filename of “s.al cats”, when
you go to save down-linked screens
the prog
screen
screen

OK, let's say we want to do two
columns, each three screens down.
When you go to save the second
column of screens, use a starting
filename of “s.a2 cats” and the
the three screens

creens. When you down-link

screen!

n will save the second
“s.b1 cats”, and the third

program will s

an

2 cats”, “s.b2 cats”, and “s.c2
cats”. Now, remember back to last
month; the fourth character is the
key for across-linked screens, Not
only have we saved two sets of three
down-linked screens, but we have
named in a way that they're also
across-linked; ifyou press / and link
the screens two-across you can load
the two top columns by giving a
filename of “sal cats”; ;
will also be loaded. The above could
beextended forthree columns
starting filename of
the third column of down-linked
screens,

NOTE: When doing columns be
sure to set the margins (pgs. 32,50)
so there's some space between each
column, else they'll run together. If
you want lines between columns.
place them outside the margins.

What if you wanted four screens
down

2 ca

hree screens down will only
print 8.3" down a sheet of paper
(three screens equals 75 rows, most
printers print 9 rows per inch, so
75/9=8.3"). Ninety rows will print
ten inches down. For that you'donly
use fifteen rows of the fourth screen
(90-75=15). To figure how many
rows for a given length simply

s X nine. Divide the
result by 25 for how many screens
you'll need.

‘There are several ways to do the
fourth screen, My recommendation
would be to down-link the screens.
(so you have margins and
wordwrap), do the single screen,
then save the screen UNLINKED,
When you go to save you're
prompted SAVE LINKED YES/NO.
if screens are linked. If you answer
NOthen you'll be prompted te
the one screen you want to save,
that, then enter a filename of"
cats” for the first (left), “s.d2
forthecenter (second), or“s.d3 cats
for the third (right) column,

Next issue we'll get into whatever
area of FGM I get the most requests
for. Until then, Happy Computing...

lect

- Ron C. Hackley
Co-Owner, FGM Connection
9

COMMODORE WORLD

Top Tips

THREE HELPFUL TIPS FROM A COMMODORE WORLD SUBSCRIBER

Leave the Switches Alone.
It seems that a lot of Commodore owners who
own non-Commodore printers with interfaces in
the middle tend to set their dip switches to the
transparent mode for printing from commercial

programs, and switching them back to CBM
emulation for printing from BASIC and small ML
programs, Since most good programs allow the
users to select a secondary address, and all
interfaces have one or two secondary addresses
for transparent mode, changingthe switches back
and forth is totally unnecessary. Simply put the
interface into CBM emulation mode and on the
commercial programs, select the secondary
address for transparent mode (4 in most cases).
While GEOS does not allow the user this option,
it uses secondary address #5 (transparent
no added linefeeds) which is compatible with
most printer interfaces (except the Tymac
Connection).

~ Ray Paternostro, Jr.

Printer Interface Power Tip

Most interfaces have an extra wire going to the
cassette port for the +5V they need to function.
On many printers, this power is also offered on
pin#18, soitis possible to modify the interfa
draw its power from the printer ins
the computer. Simply solder a small wire on the
interface circuit board connecting the pin #18
point with the point that the cassette wire goes to.
(For interfaces that have a cable going to the
printer connector, a continuity testerisextremely

J of from

We Need Your Top Tips!

Each issue we'll print the very best tips we
receive from our readers, Send your
using and programming your Commodore
64 or 128 to:

CW Top Tips

c/o Creative Micro Designs, Inc,
P.O. Box 646

East Longmeadow, MA 01028-0646

COMMODORE WORLD

helpful.) Sincenotall printers supply this voltage
it would be helpful to determine if the voltage is
present on the printer connector before
attempting this modification. To do this, turn the
printer on and *very carefully* use a multimeter
set for DC volts on pins #18 (positive) and #16
(signal ground) for +5V. Be VERY careful not to
touch the probes on the adjoining pins! Ifyouare
not comfortable with this type of work or don't
access to the equipment mentioned,
someonein yourlocal users group probably does,
that printers by §
Micronics and Panasonic do have the necessary
power on the printer connector. When this is
done and the printeris working, the cassette wire
can be removed from the serial connector.

~ Ray Paternostro, Jr.

have ea

Also, 1 know for cert

[Editor's Addendum: If you own a Micrographics
MW-350printer interface, italready has thisfunction
built-in. Also, years back, after writing a review for
the (at that time) new Cardco G-Wiz printer interface
and rec ‘ommendinga similar modification, I received
They warned
that some printers that supplied power on pin 18 of

a letter from Cardco concerning this,

the Centronics port may not have ample reserves to
power Commodore printer interfaces, since the
interfaces themselves generally do not use low power
circuitry. We feel obliged to pass on this warning,
even though we've never encountered a problem with

this ourselves.)

12

Better Video Tip
Commodore 64 and 128 computer all have what
is referred to as the composite video connector
on the back which is used to connect a video
monitor. However, many 64/128 owners who
are using a Commodore monitor are not getting
the best picture possible if they have an
aftermarket video cable going from the computer
to the monitor. The video connector offers both
composite video on one pin, and the Chroma and
Lumasignals(referredtoasseparated/LCA video)
on two other pins. Every aftermarket cable I've
seen only has a five-pin DIN connector which
utilizes the composite pin, sometimes the Luma
Sync pin (which gives a black and white picture
hooked up to [the] composite video jack on a
monitor/VCR), but never the Chroma pin.
Compounding the problem is [the fact] that the
eight pin DINjackused for composite videoisnot
astandard jack; the top two pinsarespaced farther
apart, preventing a normal eight pin DIN plug
(Radio Shack #274-026) from fitting it. The
solution is to cut off/pop out the top two pins
since they are not used and after removing the
five pin DIN plug from your video cable, solder
the wires into the appropriate pins. The diagram,
below is from the C128 System Guide.

+ Ray Paternostro, Jr.

C128 Composite Video Port
(as seen from rear of computer)

Definition

Lum/Sync Output
Ground

Audio Out

Composite Video Out
Audio In

Chroma (color) Output
Not Used

Not Used

OY HDH OMA

Issue 4

CK ISSUES

For years, RUN Magazine provided Commodore Users
with a great source of information, and now CMD has
given you Commodore World. Don't let this valuable
information slip away—fill in the voids in your library now!

RUN Magazine Back Issues
Any 3 issues for $12.00, any 6 for $18.00,
or any 12 for only $24.00

RMJAN88 January 1988 RMOCT89 October 1989
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Shipping: 3 or 6 issues - U.S. $3.00, Canada $5.00, Foreign $15.00;
12 issues U.S. $5.00; Canada $7.00; Foreign $20.00.

Commodore World Back Issues
$4.95 each, or any 3 for only $12.00

cwi-1 Volume 1, Number 1 CW1-3 Volume 1, Number 3
Cw1-2 Volume 1, Number 2 CW1-4 Volume 1, Number 4

Shipping: U.S. and Canada $2.00 per issue; Foreign $5.00 per issue.
TO ORDER CALL 1-800-638-3263

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Send check of money
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Volume 1, Number 4

Dependable Service for your Commodore!
C64, 1541, C128, or 1571: $15.00 PLUS PARTS

Send computer (& powor supply)
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COMMODORE WORLD

Just For Starters

by Steve Vander Ark

7,

SOFTWARE: WHAT YOU BOUGHT YOUR COMPUTER TO USE

Last issue we talked about disk drives. | said then
that you would more than likely want a disk drive
because virtually all Commodore software comes
on disks, Ifyou want to run any software, then,
you need a disk drive, There are exceptions
own a few games on cartridges, for example—
but these are rare. As I described the way a disk
drive works, T talked about a certain type of
program calledaword processor. A word processor
is one type of software program you can bu

‘There are many other types, and in this issue I'll
mention some of the most common and tell a
little bit about what they do.

Before | do that, however, let me define a few
terms. One that I have alr
around quite a bit is software. Software is a fancy
name for a program that you run on your
computer; the word usually refers in general to
the program, the disk it comes on, and any
paperwork that also comes in the package. If
someone says that they're using GEOS software,
for example, that means they bought and are
using the package called GEOS, which includes
several disks and a hefty manual in a box. The
program itself, (a program, as | mentioned last
issue, is a list of instructions for the computer to
do a particular job), is recorded on the disks. In
the case of the GEOS software, there are many
more than one single program, and that’s often
the case, The word software refers to the whole
business, Software is the opposite of hardware,
which is a general term for all the equipment you
are using. The monitor is hardware, in other
words, as are the keyboard and the disk drive.
When you use a computer, you'll be using both
hardware and software,

ady been bouncing

COMMODORE WORLD

There is a word for all the paperwork that
comes with a software package, whether that’s a
large manual such as the one that comes with
S ora single Xeroxed page, asis the case with
The Blues Brothers game. This is called
documentation, and good documentation is
important for anyone who is planning to use any
particular software package, That's because the
documentation tells the user how to work the
program: how to start it going, how to make

various things happen, how to save any data the
program tes, and so on, Obviously, the
documentation can make a big difference in how
nt a software package is to use.

There are basically two types of software for
St type is entertainment
software (games, in other words) and the other is

easy and pleass

computers. The f

productivity software. When you bought your
computer, you probably had in mind one or the
other of these types of software, You wanted to
play someexciting computer games, for example,
or you wanted to use a spreadsheet to help

14

organize your finances. Chances are you will
actually do some of both, but deep down your
real reason for needing the computer was either
to be entertained or to do work, Now you need to
consider what kinds ofsofiwareto buy toget your
computer doing what you want it to do.

Game softwareis a general description for alot
of types of computerized entertainment. Which
kind you buy will depend on what you like. I
ard’s

happen to like role-playing games like the
Tale series or the AD&D games from SSI Inc. My
daughter, on the other hand, prefers arcade
games like the Blues Brothers game | mentioned
a minute ago, My wife is a fan of strategy games
like Quink or Swap, or word games. There are a
lot of games which call themselves educational,
and that usually means that they drill the player
onsome kind of factual knowledge or skillas part
e; they can be arcade games,

of the
role-playing games, or strategy games, Whatever
your preferences, you'll find a game or two to
keep you happily glued to the monitor sereen.
Here are a few more things you should know

about game software:

- Alot of games require a joystick, especially the
arcade titles. You can usea joystick from an old
Atari video game, if you have one, or buy one
from a mail order firm. Make sure you get a
Commodore-compatible joystick. A mouse can
be used in joystick mode, although many
games don’t play very well that way.

- Some games, particularly the role-playing
games, ask for a blank disk to store game
information on. That way youcan starta game

Issue 4

“PLAN ON KEEPING A SET OF DISKS
TO HOLD THESE FILES AND ORGANIZE
RIGHT OFF THE BAT”

from where you left off or go back and start
from the last time you saved the game ifyou get
crunched (a nice feature for lame gamers like
me). They may want you to have the disk
already formatted, which is something I'll talk
more about next issue.

- Generally speaking, you shouldn't remove a
disk from the disk drive unless told to by the
program. Most games use files from the disk
every so often and ifyou've removed the disk,
the game will not be able to keep working.

Fora lot of people, myselfincluded, games take a
back seat to productivity software. Productivity
software includesalot of different packages which
are tools to get work done. The word processor is
a good example of a common productivity
software title. With a word processor, you can
create any kind of text, form a short note toa long,
article or book, entirely on the computer screen.
Only when the text on the screen is edited and
correct do you print the whole thing out on a
printer. Word processors are probably the most
popular productivity programs around,

The database is another example of
productivity software. With a database program,
you collect pieces of information, such as names
and addresses, in a form that the computer can
look through easily. You might put those names
and addresses into a database, then use the
computer to look through the list for a specific
name. The big advantage of this instead over, say,
an address book, is that the computer can look
things up very quickly and efficiently. You could
ask the computer to look up someone with the
first name of Mark, for example, and it would do
that even though the database kept the
information in alphabetical order by last name.
You could also ask the computer to look up two
things at once, such as finding anyone named
Mark who also happens to live in Grand Rapids,
Michigan.

Volume 1, Number 4

Athird common type of productivity software
is the spreadsheet. A spreadsheet is kind of like a
fancy calculator. The display of a spreadsheet
looks like a bunch of boxes or a grid. You type
words or numbers into the spaces, then tell the
computer to fillin another space with the results
of some math function using the other numbers.
If that was too confusing, try this example. Ifyou
wanted to keep track of expenses for your
computers) [sheet
program with spaces for all your different
purchase spaces for things
you haven't bought yet. As you spend your
money, you enter the amount spent into these
somewhere on the spreadsheet you'd set
aside a space to show the running total of all the
spaces. This number will change as you add or
adjust thenumbersin theotherspaces. Youcould
even create a space to subtract that total from a
preset amount that you've budgeted for your
computer, thereby letting the spreadsheet tell
you how much you have left to spend.

Part of the power of a spreadsheet is that you
can use it to try out various options or “what if”
scenarios. In yourcomputer budget spreadsheet,
for instance, you could enter various prices for
monitors, comparing the grand totals for each
one, to help you make a decision about which to
buy. This kind of power makes a spreadsheet a
must for anyone who works with numbers.
Here's a few more things worth noting about
productivity software:

ystem, you could set up aspi

You can even

- Whereas most games use the joystick, most
productivity software uses the keyboard or
(even better) a mouse.

Most productivity sofiware is going to create
data: word processing documents, databases,
spreadsheets, and so on. Plan on keeping a set
of disks to hold these files and organize right
off the bat. It's much easier to save thingstothe
right disks now than to sort them all later.

15

- Make sure you know what you hope to
accomplish before you buy the software. A
great-sounding software package might not
really be able to do what you need it to.

- Back up your data often, This means that you
should make copies of your data disks
regularly, Next issue we'll be talking more
about the disk commands that will help you

manage your collection.

Sofiware for the Commodore is not always easy
to come by. There are some excellent companies
out there still carrying software titles in all these
categories, however. Commodore-specific
magazines like Compute’s Gazette and RUN have
published a lot of great programs over the years
in all categories. You can even get programs for
practically nothing from on-line services such as
GEnie. Before you buy a program, though, try to
getan opinion from another Commodore user. A
wonderful place for that kind of interaction is a
Commodore user group, which is what computer
clubs are
inform:

‘alled. Check a local computer store for
ion about any local groups that support
the Commodore computers,

Next issue, as | said, I'll discuss some of the
most often used disk commands you'll need to
handle your collection of disks and the files on
them. Until then, have fun with your
Commodore. If you'd like to reach me, write to
for a quicker
response, you can email me on GEnie by sending
mail to S.VANDERARK or on the Internet by
sending your mail to:

me in care of this magazine;

S.VANDERARK@GENI

S.COM
Email letters will get answered immediately,

while the Post Awful, er, U.S. Mail variety might
languish for a few months.

A)

COMMODORE WORLD

Foreign Exchange

By Joseph Gaudl

SD

FLASH 8: GERMAN HI-TECH FOR THE COMMODORE 64

Weshouldall beshouting
FLASH 8 miracle module has arrived!” Surely
something as spectacular as a piece of hardware
guaranteed to pump your C-64 up to8 Megahertz
should demand front page status. | write this

Stop the pres:

month's Foreign Exchange, however, with a bit of

hesitancy. It's not due to the fact that the thing
doesn’t work. It doeswork, and workrathernicely
at that. It’s just that FLASH 8 had been hyped for
so long over here in Europe, then trashed, then
hyped again; shortly after that it disappeared
F the
bankruptey, then resurfaced with another

again when manufacture declared
company and on and on and on. Many of us
snickered when 64/er magazine announced a
FLASH 8 test report in their July 1994 issue, The
testresultswere very good, and wewere pleasantly
surprised! Before I give you a rundown on what
FLASH 8 can and cannot do, though, let me give
you some background information on the
development of the card.

The German based hardware company,
Rofmiiller Handshake, was rather active in the
Commodore 64 market before leaving for the
then lucrative Amiga market in 1992. Rofmiiller
was later approached by the editors of 64 er
magazineandaskedifthe company coulddevelop
a card for the C-64 which would increase it’s
processing speed. Ro&miiller agreed to give it a
shot, and got back into the C-64 hardware
business. In the late summer of th;
first prototype was sent to 64 er. The card showed
great promise, but had many flaws, When the
editors questioned RoRmiillerabout these flaws,
they were told that it would only takea few weeks
to resolve them. Rofmiiller then started a very
expensive advertising campaign of full page ads
in German computer magazines, which abruptly

ameyearthe

COMMODORE WORLD

came to an end in February 1993. While all of
Europe waited for “The Card”, Ro&miiller was
y stalling for time and apparently having
serious financial problems. The company was

obvious

bombarded with letters and calls from user
groups, individuals, and software and hardware
companies who wanted or needed information
on FLASIL 8's progress. Some poor souls had
even ordered and paidin advance to insure getting
a card once production started.

In June of 1

Rofkmiiller threw in the towel
and declared bankruptey. The editors of 64'er
showed no mercy on the company, and in their
July issue called FLASH 8 “a junk pile” and
questioned the ethies of the company's owner,
FLASH 8 was written off as a failure, and the
project was dead. RIP. Yeah, right,

Like an old Christopher Lee vampire movie,
Rofmiiller received new blood ($)andnew life. A
new company ¥ ASH 8 was
resurrected and presented asa nearly completed
product at the Hobbytronic show in Dortmund,
Germany in February.

That's the background, Let’s get down to the
specs. Just what can FLASH 8 do and not do’
the bad news. C-128 owners can forget FLASH 8;
it just won't work with your computer—not even
in C-64 mode. The card itself is currently being
sold, but the software and firmware is still a bit
“buggy”. Each card must be adjusted to the C-64

‘as formed, and

16

it's attached to. This is a trial and error process
which can take a bit of time, FLASH 8 is not yet
fully compatible with CMD devices, and cannot
beused with Commodore REUs. GEOS users will
have to install patches that change the GEOS
Kernal, CONFIGURE file, and even the 1351
mouse driver files permanently. Disk access is
not accelerated and from ten tested games, only
one worked with the FLASH 8. This is due to the
fast loaders built in to most ofthe modern games.

Not all the news is bad, though. FLASH 8 is a
computer in itself. The heart of the unit isa 16-bit
65C8 16 processor which can emulatea 6502. The
card is sold in two versions: one with 256 KB of
RAM, the other with a full Megabyte. Both have
a27C512 EPROM which contains the operating
system. Programs which do run with the card,
run fast! Working and scrolling in a geoPaint
document is really impressive. Vizawrite,
Printfox, StarPainter, xterand Hillddi are
some of the programs that have been tested over
here and work extremely well with the FLASH 8.
Programmers will have a ball writing games and
otherapplications forthe card, Included with the
product is a CP/M emulator, a macro library of
the new processor instructions, and a patch for
S. There are also instructions for using a
parallel hookup to a 1541 drive with the card.

My opinion of FLASH 8 can be summed up in
the following sentences: It has great potential
and expectations are running very high. If
Rofmiiller can deliver complete compatibility
with proven devices and software, FLASH 8 will
sell and sell big. Commodore World will present
test reports in an upcoming issues, so stay tuned.
Foreign Exchange will keep you posted on thisand
other C-64/128 developments overseas,

9

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Volume 1, Number 4 17 COMMODORE WORLD

TELECOMM

igR Eat

Pia

MODEMS, INTERFACES, &

Sone of my dearest friends are those I've never
met, but have shared conversations with via my
Commodore and modem, It’s always interesting
to load up my term program and find out what
others have had to say ad about new
happeningsin the Commodore world, and inthe
remainder of the world at large. If I've been away
fromit for awhile, I tend to find myselfhumming
theCheersthemesongas! prepareto calla favorite
bulletin board to pick up my mai
able to “go” someplace where everyone there

; it’s nice to be

knows me and we each share common interests,
That I can do this without leaving the comfort of
my computer room is nicer still.

So how does one go about getting started with
telecommunicating? Entire books have been
written on the subject; but within the confines of
thisarticle, I'll domy best to help you get started,
I'll discuss some of the things you can enjo
yourmodem, and then! ll talkaboutthe
setting up a modem and term program,

via

What is Telecommunications?
It's a long word, but essentially it means using
your phone lines to communicate, usually via

COMMODORE WORLD

modem and computer. I personally prefer the
term “BBS'in, ‘sshorterand
closertowhatIactuallydowhenlusemy modem,

”, notonly becaus

butitalsoseemsmore personal. Theterm BBS'ing
fits, as I call Bulletin Board Systems (BBS for
short), and on-line services to read messages,

(ch up on the national news, and keep in touch.

aword for an activity that has far more “people”
interaction involved in it than the computer
equipment interaction used to accomplish it,

Staying in touch.
Ihave a sister who lives in another state whom I

rarely talk to these days; yet, we're probably more
aware ofwhat each has goingonnow than weever
have been in the past. We communicate very
often with each other by sending short messages

viamodem. Weeach call thesameon-lineserv:
and by sending each other messages we stay in
touch with each other; we've also reduced our
previousphonebillsby morethan half. lalsostay
in touch with friends and relatives in other
countriesusing a variety ofdifferent mail services.

18

ONLINE NETWORKS

On-line services and Bulletin Boards have
thatallow users to leave private
public messages in a variety of
different ways. There are many different names
for doing these same things, depending on the
system you happen to call, Some Bulletin Boards
re“networked”, sothatwhen youleaveamessage
pecificarea, yourmessage will appear on all
the other bulletin boards which are connected to
the same network. This allows people from all
over the count
ideas and enjoy a common bond. BBS's that are

sage systems

ges OF pa

and indeed the world, to share

networked carry individual areas, also called
conferences or echoes, covering various topics.
This helps to avoid clutter, and allows you to

participate in only those message conversations
that interest you. For instance, if you enjoy
gardening, you can find a conference (or two or
three) devoted to just this topic.

Using on-lineservices and bulletin boards, you
can find support for nearly any hobby (such as
gardening, car racing, music, art, computers,
astronomy, needle point, etc.), for most
professions (medical, computer, technical,
restaurants, etc), and for just about any kind of

Issue 4

UNICATIONS

Le ioe Le

selfhelp group alcoholism, diabetes, alzheimers,
carpal tunnel syndrome, to name just a few).
There's even support for those addicted to their
computers. [Perhaps we need this? -Ed)

Access to Software

‘There's more to the world of telecommunication
than messages, There
domain and shareware programs to be had, If
you've ever wanted a program to do something
specific for you, but didn't know where to find it,
chances are you can locate it on-line. And ifyou
still can‘tfind it, youca nask aboutitin one ofthe
many Commodore support message areas, It’s
illegal for any BBS or on-line service to carry
| software; so you won't find, for
instance, Superbase... butyou will be able to find
variety ofpublicdomain databases, one ofwhich
just might be exactly what you're looking for.
Sharewareisat
in which if you use the program on a regular
basis, you are expected to send the author
payment for the program. You name the kind of
software you're looking for, and you can likely
find it on-line somewhere, Just a small list of the
kind of things you can find for your computer
online include graphic files such as geoPaint
files, Doodle! graphics, Print Shop graphies and
fonts; text files aboutjustabout any topicyoucan

also a wealth of public

commerci:

beforeyoubuy kind of software,

think of, including some very informative
Commodore specific files; disk related prog
suchascopiers, formatters, and directory editor:
base
programs, business programs, and of course

ms

text and sequential file editors, data

telecommuni:
programs and off-line mail readers, Oh, and

tions type files such as term.

games! There are probably thousands of
Commodore games available for the download.

On-Line Games

Did J mention games? Both on-line services and
Bulletin Boards offer games for their users that
you play on-line, and depending on the game,
you either compete with another user who is
ame time you are, or the system

on-line at th:
saves your score along with the scores of other
players and keeps

ck of your winnings. [know

Volume 1, Number 4

of one BBS that offers a computerized race track
derby, gives you “BBS” money to gamble, and
then lets youspend yourwinningson otherthings
the board offers for auction. I recently
“purchased” a box ofreal fudge this way—and it
Was delivered tome personally by the people who
run the bulletin board. Other BBS's
ly offe or
games, There are numerous solitaire type card
games which can be played, dozens ofpokerstyle
games, and heaps of role-playing games ranging
from space adventures to dungeon type
adventures. There are both bulletin boards and
rvices which spe

ind serv

ust

free time on-line or other prizes

onlin

izeinon-linegames.

Research

Getting serious, there’salsoagreatdealofresearch,
that can be done via modem with your
Commodore. Some of the terms in the
telecommunications glossary accompanying this
article are from research 1 did in the process of

preparing to write this article. know, the word,
can be a four letter word spelled

ch”

it's much e

“work”;

but seriously, er to use the
modem to call an on-line service or BBS to find
information than itis to getinthe car, drive to the
library and search for what you're looking for,
nd then punch it
ly any kind of
information you find via modem has the major

copy it down, return home,

into the computer, Gene

adv:
lasttimeIwentto the library, mostofmy research
accomplished by using their computer
system; | discovered, after the fact, it was

connected to the rest of the world’s libraries (or
so it seemed) through the Internet. | could have
omplished thesame thing without everleaving

ntage of already being a computerfile, The

wi

home. Researching from home with a modem
has the advantage of timeliness, too. I've found
reference material that was made available just
thedaybefore! wentlookingforthe information!
Almost all of the major on-line services have
encyclopediason-line, andnowmany ofthelarger
bulletin boards also haye this facility available.
The encyclopedias are especially useful if you
happen tohaveachildathomeworkingonschool
8 also have databases, which

reports. The servi

19

usually cost more to use, but also offer “search”
abilities so that you can search for whatever topic
you're looking for and generally find it.

Classified Ads.
I'vefoundsomerealba

Electronic Style
gainsin used Commodore
equipmentand software via modem, Many ofthe
Commodore support areas offer either separate
message areas with “For Sale/Wanted" type
messages, or allow such messages in with the
regular flow of Commodore support
conversations. Naturally, once an item has been
purchased, itmust be paid forandsentusually by
postal mail, unless the other person happens to
live nearby. Some of us live in places where we'd
never beableto find that special computer device
we've been looking for, but because the messages
in the support areas are either national or
international, itean make finding anything quite
a bit easier. The same holds true for selling
equipment, too. This isn’t limited to just
Commodore equipment, either. Take a look at
the types of things normally sold in your local
newspaper's classified ads, and you will
good idea ofthe variety ofmiscellaneousstuffyou
can either buy or sell via modem.

ave a

What You'll Need

Now that you have an idea of the kind of things
you can do witha modem, it’s time to take a look
at whatit takes to connectto the rest ofthe world
out there in cyberspace. Although it may seem
like alot, and it may seem a little complicated, it
really is just a matter of mind-set. If you can
remember when you learned to tide a bike or
drive a car, you'll know that you didn't learn
everything you needed to know all at once. But
after a time, these things became much easier,
and now they're probably things you don’t even
think about at all. Modeming is much the same
way. Don't expect to learn everything all it once.
It really is a learning process and you can take
pride in each step along the way. 1 remember
feeling quite proud of myself when I first
downloaded a file without a hitch—after many
unsuccessful tries—because | hadn't quite
grasped the concept of how to goaboutit. Now I

e

COMMODORE WORLD

do this ona daily basis, and it really is something
like putting the car into gear—l really don’t give
it much thought any more. In other words, the
first thing you need is patience with yourself,
your equipment, and your software,

T'llassume you already have a Commodore 64

or 128 and jump to other equipment you'll need,
Naturally, you'll needa modem. Physically, there
are two different types of modems that we
Commodore u an use, The first is one which
will connect directly into the user port the C-64 or
128. The e Commodore specific modems,
such as Commodore's 1670 modem, or an
Aprotek MinimodemC orC-24. Theotherkindof
modem we can use are generally any external

Telecommuni

modems designed and sold for other platform
computers. “Internal” modems for other
computer platforms will not work for us, but the
externalsworkjust fine, and offer the convenience
of being able to use it with any other computers
we happen to own,

If you're going to hook up an external modem
designed for other computer platforms to your
Commodore, you'llneedsomething to gobetween
the modem and the computer to translate the
signals for you. This is called an “RS-232
interface”. There are two different types of
interfaces; one which plugs into your User port,
and another which plugs into the cartridge port.
Which kind you need really depends on what

cation Speeds

A COMPARISON OF TRANSFER SPEEDS OF POPULAR TERMINAL PROGRAMS

I've often been asked, “What's the best terminal
program?” This isn'tan easy question to answer,
‘since many terminal programs contain similar in
features. And while the communication speed of
‘one program may be better than another, it may
not offer you a feature that the other one does, or
may have a more awkward user interface. It's
important to note that the speed comparisons
presented here do not tell the whole story, but

Recieve Speed (download)

they at least give you an indication of what to
expect when communicating at various rates. All
test results were achieved via direct null-modem
connection, using text-based test files the size of
which was calculated using connection speed x
12, Each program was tested forthe best possible
speed by using RAM devices for transfers.
Transfers using mechanical (disk) devices will
be slower, especially at higher connection rates.

Program Storage Dev. Int. Handshake 2400 4800 9600 1920038400
Novaterm REU (RAMDOS) UP XON/XOFF 192 --- --- --- ---
Novaterm REU (RAMDOS) SL RTS/CT. 192 339 526 7 857
Novaterm RAMLink UP XON/XOFF 200 --- --- ---
Novaterm RAMLink SL RTS/CTS 200 359 593 985
Dialogue 128 REU (RAMDOS) UP XON/XOFF 200 366 -
Dialogue 128 REU (RAMDOS) 200 376 608 915
Dialogue 128 RAMLink 205 371 --- --- ---
Dialogue 128 RAMLink 216 391 638 1056 1120
Fritzterm RAMLink 413 734 1155 1625
REU (direct) F Say) Osi leet,
Fr 2 REU (direct) SL XON/XO! 434 803 1431
Fritzterm RAMLink UP XON/XO)
Desterm REU (direct) UP XON/XOFF
Desterm REU (direct) SL None
Transmit Speed (upload)
Program Storage Dev. Int. Handshk.
Novaterm REU (RAMDOS) UP XON/XOF
Novaterm RAMLink UP XON/XOFF
Novaterm REU (RAMDOS) SL RTS/CTS
Novaterm RAMLink SL RTS/CTS
Dialogue 128 REU (RAMDOS) UP XON/XOFF
Dialogue 128 REU (RAMDOS) SL RTS/CTS
Fritzterm RAMLink UP XON/XOFF
Dialogue 128 RAMLink UP XON
Dialogue 128 RAMLink SL
REU (direct) UP
RAMLink SL

Fritzterm

Fri x
Desterm
Desterm

m

x
REU

(direct) SL

COMMODORE WORLD

None

ON /XOFF

kind of external modem you are going to use. If
you have a 1200 or 2400 baud modem (9600 for
C-128 owners), you can get away with the User
port style. Some of these are still commercially
available, but are becoming more rare with time.
Some of the names you can look for on the used
marketandin catalogs for companies which carry
Commodore equipment include Aprotek,
Omnitronix and Peak Peripherals. The names
will usually be followed by “RS-232 Interface”.
Faster modems, suchas 9600 baud (C-64 owners)
and beyond require the use of a Cartridge port
These can handle the faster speeds

interfi
because they contain a hardware UART chip.
‘There are three of these available, two of which
are available in the commercial market: CMD’s
SwiftLink, and the HART Cart; the third interface
is one you can make yourself or have someone
a Pump. For just about
any of the Interfaces mentioned, you will also
need a cable, generally called a DB-25 cable
(although the SwiftLink requires a DB-25 to DB-9
cable). These, luckily, are very easy to find—just
about any store which carries computer
equipment has them available.

I know that I just tossed a lot of unfamiliar
terms at you, but you can look most of these up in
the glossary provided in this issue to find out
their meanings and uses.

Slowing the pace a bit, now that I've described
the equipment, lets coversomeotherinformation
regarding the modems and interfaces that you
will need to know before deciding which will
work best for you.

Some term programs (which | will discuss
shortly) work better with some modems and/or
interfaces than others, Most of the Commodore
1200 baud and Aprotek Commodore-ready
modems will work with just about any term
program available, but have the disadvantage of
being slow. The modems which require an
interface willalso generally work with almostany
term program currently available, but not with
some of the older programs such as CCGMS or
QcLink’s terminal software, SwiftLink has the
advantage of being readily available
commercially, and both SwiftLink and the Hart
Cart offer vast improvements in speed over other
interfaces, But because these are relatively newer
devices, there are fewer term programs which
support them. On the flip side, the software that
supports the SwiftLink and Hart Cart are also
fairly current. The final choice in which modem
and interface (if required) to purchase depends
on what your own needs are, and what you want
to spend on equipment.

As I've mentioned, you'll also need software
called a term program, terminal program, or

make for you, called

Issue 4

sometimes called communications program. I'll
stickwith term orterm program tomakeit easier.
This is a program which “talks” to your modem,
and allows you to do many different things once
you are on-line. It tells your modem how to send
information, and it interprets how the
information received through the modem looks.
on your screen. Because many of the best term
programs offer a variety of choices on many
different things, they can be very confusing at
first. This other area where patience really
comes into play, and reading (rereading if
necessary) the documentation that comes with it
is very important. Some of the term programs
which are readily blecommercially, through
usergroups, or via BBS's and other on-lineservices
include Novaterm and Fritzterm for the 64, and
Desterm and Dialogue 128 for the 128.

‘Terminal emulationissomething that the
program handles for you, and it’s well worth
mentioning, as many Bulletin Board systems
which are run using MS-DOS style computers
use what is called ANSI graphics. In fact, several
ANSI graphics now,
too, My very first modem call was to one of these
boards, and my sereen looked very odd indeed,
asIdidn'tknowanythingabout ANSI at thetime.
Ifyoucalla bulletin board, and see number codes
inside brackets alongside the words, you can be
fairly sure that youneed to set yourterm program
for ANSLemulation. Once you'vedone this, things
should look far more “normal”, When calling an
on-line service, however, you should probably
set the emulation for “ASCII”, “Standa
VP-100. Ifyou know that you're calling a BBS run
on a Commodore 64 or 128, you can try C/G or
ColorGraphicsemulation. Atthispoint wouldn't
worry much about what each of these mean, but
by experimentation, you'll find which terminal
emulation works foreach system you call. Luckily,
you can save your configurations within the term
program, so these are not things you have to
remember each time you use your modem.
Usually this information is saved along with the
(electronic) phone book the term program stores
for you.

Commodore BBS'salso of

Places to Go!

I've mentioned the words Bulletin Board, BBS
and on-line service several times, and now it’s
time to talk about exactly what these are, their
similarities and differences, and what each has to
offer. The terms Bulletin Board and BBS are
interchangeable and mean the same thing.
Bulletin Boards are generally smaller systems
which are run on home computers and have a
little less to offer than the major on-line services
which catertoa larger “audience”. Isay generally,

Volume 1, Number 4

Signing Up with On-line Service Providers

CompuServe
Voice Assistance 1-800-848-8990

Terminal Program Configuration:
300/1200/2400 Baud
Terminal Emulation: ASCII
Full Duplex.
Local Echo OFF.
71E (7 data bits, 1 stop bit, EVEN parity)

Dial (voice) 1-800-848-8199 to receive
INFO such as temporary User |D numbers,
temporary password, and your local access
phone number for CompuServe.

Dial CompuServes local access number.

Prompt Expected Response
CONNECT <RETURN>

HOST NAME: CIS <RETURN>
User ID: [per supplied INFO]
Password: [per supplied INFO}

Agreement Number: [per supplied INFO)
Serial Number: [per supplied INFO}

Answer questions and follow the on-line
instructions to complete initial sign-on.

The Phoenix Network
Voice Assistance 1-800-869-1155

Terminal Program Configuration:
300/1200/2400 or 9600 baud
Terminal Emulation: ANSI or ASCII
Local Echo OFF
8N1 (8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit)

Call the voice support line to obtain a
SprintNet access phone number for your
area, To sign on, call the SprintNet number
provided.

If calling at 300-1200 baud:

Prompt Expected Response
CONNECT <RETURN>D<RETURN>
TERMINAL= D1 <RETURN>

@ 61260433 <RETURN>

If calling at 2400 or 9600 baud:

Prompt Expected Response
CONNECT @D <RETURN>
TERMINAL= D1 <RETURN>

@ 61260433 <RETURN>

Answer questions and follow the on-line
instructions to complete initial sign-on.

21

Terminal Program Configuration:
1200/2400/9600 baud or 14.4K bps
Terminal Emulation: ANSI or ASCII
Local Echo OFF
8N1 (8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit)

Phone (416) 213-6002 or (416) 213-6003

Answer questions and follow the on-line
instructions to complete initial sign-on.

New Users have 1 hour to check out the
system. No downloads are allowed until
membershipis paid, execept for utility files,
bulletins about the system, user guides
and conference lists.

Voice Assistance 1-800-695-4005

Terminal Program Configuration:
300/1200/2400/9600 baud or 14.4K BPS
Terminal Emulation: ASCII
Full Duplex
Local Echo OFF
8N1 (8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit)

Dial: 1-800-695-4002

Prompt Expected Response
CONNECT <RETURN> - several times
Password: FREE

Answer questions and follow the on-line
instructions to complete initial sign-on.

Voice Assistance 1-800-638-9636

Terminal Program Configuration:
300/1200/2400 baud
Terminal Emulation: ASCII or VT100
Half Duplex
Local Echo ON
8N1 (8 data bits, 1 stop bit, NO Parity)

Dial 1-800-638-8369

Prompt Expected Response
CONNECT HHHHH
U#t= SIGNUP <RETURN>

Answer questions and follow the on-line
instructions to complete initial sign-on.
-GM

COMMODORE WORLD

On-line Shortcuts to
Commodore Support

GEnie
M625
CompuServe
GO CBMSERVICE
To find other CBM areas
FIND COMMODORE
Delphi
GO COM COM
The Phoenix Network
/GO COMFORUM
CRS Online
J13

because there are some very major BBS's that
carry almostas much ormorein the way of se

than the on-line services do, Most BBS's

ices

are free,
in the sense that if you dial a local phone number
to reach it, there are no charges to use it. The

exception of course, are the larger ones which
offer more services. These BBS's usually are
“subscription” boards, which give users who

subscribe fora period of time (usually six months

toayear) extra services or time on-line, The costs
can range from as little as $10 to $100 or more. It
depends entirely on what the SysOp (the person
who runs the BBS) decides to charge.

On-line services the larger services which offer
8 to Data
and encyclopedias, GEnie, Delphi, CompuServe,
and even the soon-to-be shut down Q-Link are
examples of on-line services. Usually the services
charge a monthly fee which is charged to your

everything from Internet ser

credit card account whether or not you use the
service for that month, and allow a specific
amount of time on-line before adding more
charges to your credit card. Some of the features
of an on-line service may cost extra regardless of
when you use the feature, Most of the services
also charge a lot extra when you call during the
daytime rather than during the hours between 6
PN A,

Sometimes the distinction between BBS's and
on-line services get blurred. For example, services
that run using BBS software, but which use extra

and

equipment to allow access toa larger number of

users than a standard BBS could normally allow,
and/or offer far more in the way of features than
a standard Bulletin Board. CRS and Phoenix are
two such services which fall into this category.
There ARE on-line services which are not

and 128 users

accessible to Commodore 6:
because they require the use of specially designed
MS-DOS or Macintosh software which functions
only for their services; these include Prodigy,
AOL (America On-Line), and Imagine!

The Big “I”

The Internet is neither here nor there. It belongs,
seemingly, to no-one, and is run, seemingly, by
no-one and everyone at the same time. It is the
largest “network” of computer s}
world, and is becoming larger every minute
(literally), It's available in one form or another to
almost any on-line service member, and
increasingly to those who subscribe to BBS's
which offersome ofthe Internet's features as part
of their services. Not all on-line services provide
full access to the Internet, although most offer at

stems in the

On-line Service Fees

Service
GEnie

Fees
$8.95/month
$3.00/hr addt'l.
$12.50/hr addt'l.
$8.95/month
$4.80/hr adat'l.
$9.60/hr addt'l.
$10.00/month
$4.00/hr addt'l.
$20.00/month
$1.80/hr addt’l.
$9.00/hr addt'l.
No Monthly Fee
$4.50/hr
$6.50/hr
$8.00/hr
$10.00/hr

CDN$125.00/yr.

CompuServe

Delphi

Phoenix Network

CRS Online

COMMODORE WORLD

Fee Coverage
Includes 4 hrs/month (non-prime)

Additional hours (Evenings & Weekends)

Daytime access surcharge

Unlimited Basic Services

Extended Services 1200-2400 baud
Extended Services 9600-14,400 baud
Includes 4 hrs/month (10/4 Plan)
Additional hours (10/4 Plan)

Includes 20 hrs/month (20/20 Plan)
Additional hours (20/20 Plan)
Daytime Sprintnet access surcharge
N/A

the very least “E-Mail” service. Internet E-Mail
allows you to send messages anywhere in the
world, and have it usually arrive at it’s intended
location within just a couple of minutes, or at
mostafew hours. Entire“conversations” ofseveral
messages can be had with people in distant
n 24 hours. It really is quite
also many services which can

countries in less t
amazing. There are
be received through just Internet E-Mail alone,
but most of these services are also available in
other formats too. Newsgroups are the Internet
equivalent to topic specific message bases such as

I’ve mentioned above, One such group is the
COMP.SYS.CBM Usenet newsgroup which
carries international conversations about
Commodore computers.

Wrap Up

A modem and term program allow you to reach
out and bea part of global community, whether
you're communicating with a friend down the
street, or with friends halfway around the world.
Hopefully this article has helped you to learn
What telecommunicating has to offer you, what
you need in the way of both hardware and
software, and about some of the places you can
“visit” while in the comfort of your home with
your Commodore. I hope to see you “on-line”
soon!

»

Gaelyne R, Moranee writes a monthly column for
Commodore users in BBS Magazine, and is
Co-Sysop of Ancient Heart BBS in w, MI.
n be reached via Internet ail at

gaelyne.moranec@wolverine.com.

Internet Services & Fees
E-mail; Sysops will locate and
upload files from FTP sites.
Full access planned for ‘95.
E-mail ($.15/message)

Telnet (Extended Service)

E-mail, Usenet Newsgroups
(no charge). FTP, Gopher,
Telnet ($3.00/month addt'l.).

None

300-2400 baud, M-F 6PM-7AM, Sat & Sun

9600 baud, M-F 6PM-7AM, Sat & Sun
300-2400 baud, Weekdays 7AM-6PM
9600 baud, Weekdays 7AM-6PM

2 hrs/day online, 2 MB/day download limit

22

None

Issue 4

103 - Officially, ‘Bell 103' whichis the standard
Controlling transmission at 300 bps in the
United States,

212A - Officially, ‘Bell 212A’ which is the
standard controlling transmission at 1200
bps in the United States,

aljas-Aname that users canuse onabulletin
board thatis nottheir own. (Also calledhandle],

ANSlemulation - The ability tosend, receive,
and display ANSI graphics,

ANSI graphics -A setofcursorcontrol codes
whichoriginatedon the VT100smartterminal,

answer mode - When a modem is ready to
pick up the phone when it rings. After picking
up the phone, the modem will attempt to
make a connection with another modem. All
BBS's are in answer mode.

ASCII - An acronym for American Standard
Code of Information Interchange. MS-DOS
style computers use this, while Commodore
computers use PETASCIl. MostCBMterminal
programs can translate text files between the
two formats.

auto-answer-Whenamodemhasthe ability
to automatically pick up the phone when the
phone rings and then attempt to connect with
‘another computer.

auto-baud detect - The ability of amodem to
‘change to a lower bps rate if the computer it
is calling is unable to communicate at the
requested speed.

auto-download - The feature of some
protocols where the BBS can automatically
make your communications program start a
download or upload. Novaterm’s Z-Modem
download has this ability.

auto-reliable - The ability of a modem to be
able to communicate both with modems that
do have error-control and/or data
compression, and those that do not.

batch file transfer - This is when more than
one file is sent at a time by a file transfer
protocol.

baud - A term referring to the speed at which
modems communicate. Technically, it is the
number of changes in an electronic signal per
second, Since the number of changes used
to be the same as the number of bits sent or
received per second, bps and baud are often
used interchangeably.

BBS- Anacronym for Bulletin Board System.
Usually it is a home computer that has a
modem attached and is waiting for calls from
other computers. BBS can also be expanded
more simply to ‘bulletin board’ or ‘board’.

Volume 1, Number 4

A Glossary of

Telecommunications Terms
compiled by Gaalyne Moranee

block - A group of data bytes. For example,
when downloading a program, block sizes of
128 or 1024 characters are common.

block size - This term, when used with either
error control or data compression protocols,
refers to the number of characters to be sent
atone time. If error control is used, the codes
are sent immediately following this block.

bps - Bits Per Second. The transmission
speed of most modems is measured in baud
or bps. Bpsis literally the number of bits sent
by the modem every second.

buffer -To save all incoming data in memory.
Most term programs have buffers. Usually
what is saved to buffer is then manually
saved to disk by the user.

bulletin - A special message posted on a
BBS, usually written by the SysOp.

capture - To ‘catch’ text that is being sent to
your computer from a BBS and put it in a
buffer or a file.

capture buffer - The area in a computer's
memory where a communications program
stores incoming data that is to be saved.

carrier -The tone that the modem sends over
the phone lines. Data is modulated onto this
tone, so it is referred to as the carrier tone.

carrier detect - when the modem senses a
carrier, you are connected toa BBS or online
service. [Abbreviated as CD].

characters per second - The number of
bytes or characters sent over the phone lines
in 1 second. [Abbreviated as CPS).

chat mode - A terminal program mode used
to“chat" with someone on the other end of the
line. Only after the return key is hit will the line
of text be sent to the modem,

checksum - Commonly used when
downloading a program, and in error control
protocols. The checksum is the result of a
‘mathematical equation.

Co-SysOp - Person who assists the Sysop of
a BBS and has a little more access than
regular users.

conference - A group of related messages
‘on a BBS. Often, many BBS's are linked
together for a conference so that users on all
the BBS's can see and reply to the messages,

connect speed - The speed, generally stated
in bits per second, which your modem uses
when it connects with another.

connection -The actual contact with another
computer.

control character - Any of the 32 ASCII
characters that do not print on your screen or
printer, These characters are usually used to
control your computer.

CRC - Stands for Cyclic Redundancy Check.
CRC is a system to make sure that a block of
data is as free from error as possible.

CTS - Clear To Send. This is when the
modem lets the other computer know that it
can send information to the other computer.

CTSIRTS - The method of flow control that
uses the CTS and RTS signals on an RS-232
connection, This is a form of hardware
handshaking, enabling connected systems
to determine when data can be transferred.

data bits - [1] The number of bits that the
‘modem uses to represent one byte, This is
usually 8, though itcan be 7, since ASCII text
characters need only 7 of the 8 bits. [2] The
actual data bits within a byte being sent
through the phone lines.

data compression-Usingdatacompression,
a modem can send information faster. Both
sending and receiving modems must have
this ability to use it. Itdoes not compress files
which are already compressed, however.

data modem - A modem that does not have
the ability to sendor receive faxtransmissions.

DB-25 - The 25 pin plug that connects an
RS-232C cable to the RS-232 port. Modems
generally use this connector.

DB-9 - The 9 pin plug that connects an
RS-232C cable to the RS-232 port.

DCD - Data Carrier Detect. This tells the
computer whether or not the modem is
‘connected to another modem.

DCE - Data Communications Equipment.
These are computer peripherals that
communicate. A modem is a DCE.

dialout facility - A service which you dial a
local number which connects you to other
computer systems. Telenet is an example.

disconnect - To hang up the phone and
cause the connection between your modem
and another computer to be stopped.

door - An extemal program of the BBS.
Usually either games or offline mail facilities
are doors.

download - To receive a computer file from
a bulletin board,

DSR- Data Set Ready. Thisindicates thatthe
modem is on, and ready to accept input from
the computer.

23

DTE - Data Terminal Equipment. This is
computer equipment which is not directly
responsible for communicating, for example,
the computer itself and printers,

OTR - Data Terminal Ready. The DTR signal
{s sent from the computer to the modem, tolet
the modem know that the computer is ready
to communicate,

E-mail - Electronic mail. Messages that are
sent to individual people. Through networks,
its possible to send mail to anyone on any
BBS in the network.

E-mail address - Similar to a postal mailing
address, an address lets people know how
you can be reached on a network. It may
Consist of numbers and/or words.

‘echo-Areferencetoanechomailconference.
For example, “This echo has too many
messages.” Also used to decribe when a
bulletin boardor your terminal program sends
back the characters that you type.

echomail-Many BBS'shavemessagebases
that are shared with other BBS's. Sometimes
‘echomail can extend across the world,

effective transfer rate - This is the rate at
Which data canbesentafterdata compression
has been accounted for.

error control - The ability of a modem to
notice errors in trans-mission, and have any
incorrect data re-sent.

escape sequence -Asequence of characters
(usually +++) that teli the modem to change
from data mode to command mode.

factory configuration - The way that your
modem was set up when it left the factory.
Typing AT&F normally returns your modem
to this setting,

fall-back - The ability of amodem to change
to a lower speed when there is a problem
‘communicating at the higher speed,

fall-forward - This is when a modem will
change to a faster speed if line conditions
improve after a fall-back occurs.

faxmodem - A modem that can send and
receive faxes.

feature negotiation - Part of hand-shaking,
where a modem determines the best speed,
error control, and data compression protocols
for connecting to another modem.

feed - Connection between a BBS and a
message network.

feedback - A message that is sent by a user
to the SysOp of a bulletin board,

COMMODORE WORLD

FidoNet - A public network connecting
thousands of BBS’s around the world,

flow control - A method of controlling when
information is or is not sent.

freq - Short for "File REQuest.” It is used to
get program(s) from a BBS, without logging
‘on. Only Sysops can FREQ files from other
Sysops. Users generally ask the Sysop to
FREQ file(s) for them.

FIP - File Transfer Protocol. This is the
method of transfering files on internet.

full duplex - The ablity to simultaneously
transmit and receive data,

half duplex - Mode which allows only one
modem at a time to transmit information.

hand-shaking- Generaltermforthe methods
two communications devices use to
synchronize with each other,

Hayos AT command set - This is the set of
commands usedto operate Hayes and Hayes-
compatible modems,

Hayes-compatible - Modem which supports
the Hayes AT command set.

initialization string - A series of commands
sent by your terminal program to configure
your modem, usually when the program is
started or when auto-dialing pre-defined
communications service telephone numbers.

internet - This is the largest network of inked
computers, Originally started by the U.S,
Government.

internetaddress- This is an address usedto
feach someone on the internet,

internet relay chat - On the intemet, 2 or
more users to talk (type) to each other in
“semi-real time". Messages may take awhile
to reach each other, but quick enough that
they can wait for replys and “chat.” [Same as

Kermit protocol - An almost error-free file
transferprotocol usually usedfortexttransfers,

LAPM - Link Access Procedure for Modems,
Atype of errorcontrolused by some modems.
It Is NOT a compression method, though
some modem manufacturers have incorrectly
advertised it as such.

line noise - This is interference on the
telephone lines, It causes garbage to appear
on your screen,

local echo - This is when a communications
program will send information (either that you
type or from a file) to your screen, as well as
to the other modem.

logoff - To leave a BBS, and disconnect the
phone line. [Same as exit, quit, goodbye}.

logon - The process of connecting to a BBS,
“Logon” can include the process of entering
your name and password.

mailer- A program used by BBS's that allows
other BBS's to call, so that mail and/or files
can be transfered automatically between the
two,

COMMODORE WORLD

message base - A group of messages on a
BBS pertaining to a certain topic...

MNP- Microcom Networking Protocol. A type
oferrorcontrol anddatacompression, created
by Microcom, that many newer modems use.
Wis built into the modem, unlike software
error correction in file transfer protocols. There
are different MNP levels, Levels 1-4 are error
control protocols, and level 5 is a data
compression protocol thatcan compress data
to about 50% of its original size. A modem
with MNP-5 alsohas MNP-4, MNP 1-4 is also
included in the CCITT V.42 error correction
system,

modem - MODulator/DEModulator, The
device used for computers to communicate
over telephone lines.

moderator - The person who is in charge of
a conference. This person usually has the
task of making sure that users of the
conference follow the conference rules,

netmail - Messages that are sent over
networks of BBS's to specific people, Similar
to Internet E-mail,

network - A group of BBS's that are “linked”
together. This means that the BBS's share
messages and sometimes files,

non-volatile memory - This is memory that
many modems have which is not destroyed
when the power is turned off.

‘null modem - A connection between two
‘computers locally, causing the computers to
act as if connected via a modem. Generally
used to transfer data from one machine to
another.

off-line - When your computer is not
connected to another BBS.

off-line mail reader - A program that allows
you to read messages and reply to them after
you call a BBS.

‘on-line - When your computer is connected
toa BBS.

on-line conference- This is when a group of
people “gat together" and have a conference
using their computers. Major on-line services
have this feature. [also called “real-time
conference’],

on-line games - Any game that is played on
a BBS.

on-line service- usually means a pay service
such as Compuserve or GEnie,

packer - A BBS program which packs new
messages together to be sent out by a mailer
or download by a user for offline mail reading.

padding - This happens when a file that is
being transferred ends in the middle of a
block of data. The communications program
must add blank data to fill up the block. Some
term programs will ‘strip" this before saving
the file to disk.

password - A special code that only you
know which the BBS asks for each time you
logon. Passwords should be changed
frequently and should be something you can
remember but that others won't guess,

post - To save a message that you have
written on a BBS so that other people can see
it

protocol - Amethodof sending and receiving
@ program. There are many methods
available, each with differentadvantages and
disadvantages. Also used to describe the
way that hardware error control is managed.

QWK - A type of mail packet

RD - Receive Data. This is the wire inan RS-
232C cable that receives data,

RJ-11 - Thisis anormal phone jack. Modems
usually have 2 jacks like this, one to connect
to the phone line, and the other to connect to
a telephone to use when the modem isn't in
use.

RS-232 Interface - device which allows
Commodore 64 and 128 computers to use
common external modems designed for other
platforms,

RS-232C - The name of a standard (created
by the Electronics Industry Association) for
communication between a computer and a
serial device.

RTS - Request To Send, The computer tells
the modem it wants to send information to the
other computer. Only used in half duplex
mode.

script language -Many term programs allow
the user to write a program, or script, which
allows them to use the program without
actually typing anything,

‘SIG - Special Interest Group. Thisis similarto
‘amessage base, but it may also contain files.

‘Sysop -Shortfor SYStems OPerator. Person
whoisin charge of a BBS. Usually the person
who paid for the BBS equipment and pays for
the phone line,

tagline - Offline mail readers allow you to
havea “tagline” at the end of your messages,
This is often a funny saying or a quote.

terminal emulation - When a term program
imitates a certain brand of terminal, such as
ANSI, VT100, etc,

terminal program - A program that controls
a modem, and has features that allow the
user to do such things as upload, down-load,
etc. Also called communications program or
term program,

thread - A group of related messages on a
BBS, within the same message base.

transfer - To send a computer program from
‘one computer to anoth-er. “xfer” is an
abbreviated way to say the same thing,

upload - To send a program from your
computer to a BBS.

V.17 - The CCITT standard for fax
transmission at 14,400bps.

V.21 - The Intemational standard, controls
transmission at 300bps.

V.22 - The international standard for
transmission at 1200bps.

24

\V.22bIs - The intemational standard, controls
data transmission at 2400bps.

V.23-The CCITT protocol for transmission of
1200bps one way, 75bps the other way.

V.24- This, combined with V,28 is the CCITT
standard equivalent to EIA's RS-232C
standard,

V.28 - Part of V.24.

V.29-The CCITT standard for 9600bps half-
duplex communications.

V.32 - The international standard controlling
transmission at 9600bps.

V.32bis - The international standard for 14,400
bps modems.

V.42 - A standard error control system that
includes LAPM, as well as MNP 2-4.

V.42.compatible - Modem that follows allthe
V.42 specifications, except for LAPM error
control (uses MNP instead),

V.42 compliant - Modem which follows all
the V.42 specifications, and uses LAPM error
control or MNP error control,

V.42bis - A CCITT standard for data
compression. Itcan compress data with about
43:1 compression ratio, 4:1 under the right
conditions. Any modem with V, 42bis also has.
V.42 error control,

V.Fast - The proposed CCITT standard for
communications at up to 28,800bps,

Xmodem - A file transfer protocol developed
by Ward Christensen. Slow by today's
‘standards, but almost every communications
program offers this protocol. [Same as
Christensen protocol.

Xmodem-1K - Similar to Xmodem/CRC, but
uses blocks of 1024 bytes, rather than 128.
Faster than Xmodem, since it makes fewer
error checks,

XmodemVCRC - The same as Xmodem, but
more reliable as it catches more errors,

Xoff - The CTAL-S character, This is often
used to pause information that is being sent.
The information will be continued when an
CTAL-Q is received.

Xon - The CTRL-Q character. Continues
paused information,

Xon/Xoft - The flow control method using the
Xon and Xoff characters. This is a form of
software handshaking, used to determine
when data can be sent and/or recieved,

Ymodem - Protocol which transfers more
than one file at a time. It can use both 1024
byte blocks and 128 byte blocks.

Ymodem-g - Ymodem, but changed to
provide best results with error-correcting
modems, Not widely available for Commodore
terminal programs, although included in at
least one CBM 128 BBS package.

Zmodem - Protocol known for its speed,
auto-download, andbatch downloadfeatures.

Issue 4

Bad File Names
dy fie Bucttrfield

Caution: the following discussion of file names and how to fix them is
meant for non-Geos disks, Disks containing Geos files are complex, and
you should never use the Validate/Collect disk command with such disks.

Two annoying problems can crop up on Commodore disk files that are
easy to fix if you know how: “splat” files, and “comma” files.

Splat files have an asterisk (that’s the “splat”) next to the file type. That
means that the file was never closed properly, so it is probably incomplete.
Comma files have a name tl imply ",” a single comma, Incidentally,
you can have duplicate filenames here: many files on a disk can all have the
comma name.

The best way to get rid of splat files is not to make them in the first place.
at file is incomplete, that is, the program that wrote it never
the file, you can often catch this problem in the making.

Here's how it can happen, You are running a program, and it stops for
some reason. Perhaps it had an error, or perhaps you stopped it with the
Run/Stop key. No matter. The program is stopped, and the disk lightis still
on. Ifyou don’t do something, the files that are being written will end up as
“splat” files, ACTION: type

S.

CLOSE 15: OPEN 15,8,15: CLOSE 15

‘The disk light will go out, and all files are now closed. [The trick: closing the
“command channel” automatically closes all active files on the disk).

Ifyou didn't do this during the file-writing cycle, you're stuck with a splat
file and you must take special action to remove it, DO NOT SCRATCH A
SPLAT FILE; IT’S DANGEROUS. Instead, “Validate” or “Collect” the disk.
Ona 128 or Plus/4, command COLLECT DO, On earlier machines, use the
sequence:

OPEN 15,8,1
PRINT#15, "VO"
CLOSE 15

ck: scratching a file is dangerous, since the file is not closed and the
might have a loose end, But the Validate/Collect action
dumps the splat files and then does a general disk tidying job].

Desperation measure: Ifyou need to data from a splat file, even though
you know it's incomplete, you can try. You'll need some programming
skills, and must keep in mind that you likely won't receive a normal end-of-
file indication, The trick is to open the file with mode ‘M’, thus:

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8,8,8, "BADFIL

s,M"

About those comma files. Somehow, a program tried to write a file that has
noname, Maybe it asked you fora filename and you just pressed RETURN.
Maybe the program tried to calculatea nameand fouled up. Inany case, the
program has done something like OPEN 8,8,8,",5,W”, and the file with no
name turns intoacomma file. And now
do anything with it.

Unless you have skills in disk sector editing, you can't do too much with
the data on these files. But you can get rid of them, Here’s how,

Takea directory ofall the files on disk that havea one-character name. To
do this command:

ems as if you can't serateh itor

DIRECTORY

(128 or Plus/4 style)
(other computers)

LI

If you get only the comma files, you're ready to scratch all files with one-
character names. If you get other files, rename them and go for the
directory again (you can always restore the original names when the
operation is complete).

‘To dump all files whose names are only one character long, command
SCRATCH “?” on the 128-style machines, or:

General note: Any time youhave had misbehaving files ona di
idea to copy all your good files over to a fresh disk and leave your old
troubles behind.

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Volume 1, Number 4

25

COMMODORE WORLD

‘These trivia questions are my gift to the Commodore
Communityatlarge; while other parts of thismagazine
maynotbe reproduced without the consent of Creative
Micro Designs, Inc., these questionsare publiedomain,
Laskonly that thearticleremainsintact andunchanged,
and that my information appears somewhere so users,

can contact me, These questions form a contest that I
run on the Internet, so you may feel free to contact me
for all the relevant information. If you do use them, I
always welcome a postcard detailing where they were
used, Ifyouhavea question, please sendit (with answer)
as well.

joy!

| RIVIA

Jim Brain (Internet; brain@mail, msen.com)
Brain Innovations, Inc.

2306B Hartland Road

Hartland, MI 48353

20 Whatdotheletters IEEE in IEEE-488 stand for?
$021 What was the logo of Batteries Included?

2 The Commodore VIC-20, 64, and 128
computers emulate in software a very
important integrated circuit, What is
number, and why is it important?
Commodore watches play a beautiful song for
the alarm, What is the song's title?

4 The C2N style Commodore tape decks are
impressivein handlingerrors, Howmany times
is a single program stored onto tape?

What is a jifly?

$025

)26 What is the screen resolution of the
Commodore VIC-20?

$027 Why is the VIC-20 named the VC

a

German
$028 Why was early Commodore equipment built
into such heavy enclosures?

$029 What two BASIC 2.0 commands might still
work ifmispelled?

2A What does CIA stand for? (not the U.S. CIA!)

2B (hard one) Whatis the one key VIC capability.
that makes full-screen hires graphics possible
on the _VIC-20_?

COMMODORE TRIVIA #3 QUESTIONS

C How many cassette ports does the CBM 8032
computer have?

D What 5 bytesmustappearinevery Commodore
64 autostart cartrdge and what location in
memory must they be place

$02E Whatisthecorrect Commodoretechnicalterm

for “Sprites”?

(Vhreeparter, all parts must becorrect) “Push-

wrap-crash” isa nickname fora condition that

can lock up an old-style C-64, What causes it?

How can it be avoided (besides not doing it)?

What is the only way out once it has occured

(besides rebooting)?

COMMODORE TRIVIA #2 ANSWERS

$00A Lorraine. Amiga was the company name.
When Commodore bought the company, they
serapped the model name and used the old
company name.
Richard Garriott. Scott Statton has met him
nd says that he is son of astronaut Owen
Garriott.
59458. It is in the 6522 Versatile Interface
Adapter. No, [won't tell you what to poke into
it, but Iwill tell you that itisnot the only wayto
frya PET. Here’sadescription from none other
than Jim Butter The poke shownaboveis
correct. Its intention was to speed up early
model PETs by masking the RETRACE line (by
switchingit to output)... however, Commodore
subsequently REDESIGNED the interface in
such a way that making the VIA pin an output
caused (now) two outputs to fight each other...
result, VIA and/or video circuitry burnt out,
LATER (Days of"fat 40" and80-column PETS),
the new CRT controller chip could be fiddled
with POKES so that it generated scan rates
completely out of the capacity of the CRT
deflection circuits. Result: burnt out deflection
circuitry... and that was no YOKE!” Richard
Bradley says that 59595 is the second poke that
Jim is referring to,
Talso have it on word from Ethan Dicks that
59409isanother infamouspoke, butI wouldn't
try any of these!
‘ext Editing Device, It did not have as many
capabilities as the VIC II.

$008

$00c

$00D

COMMODORE WORLD

S00 The Commodore DPS 1101. The CBM 6400
was another earlier attempt at a daisy-wheel
printer, but it had an IEEE-488 interfa

SOOF 2.

$010 3.5.

Daphne/Denise, Agnes/Agnus, and Paula/

Portia, or Huey, Duey, and Louie. Denise,

Agnes, and Paula were the American names,

but the the others crept in from somwhere.

The ducks were alwaysajoke, but caught on as

alternate names.

‘The Educator 64. It was model number CBM

4064, and it was also called the PET64. Note

that this version of the 64 was the second

attempt. Commodore first tried to sell the

lucator 64" to schools in the regular 64 case,
but administrators and teachers disliked the
“homey” look. ‘Thus, it was squeezed into a
PET case and sold better, although Tdon'tthink
it was ever a killer seller,

3 The Commodore SED 1001, It was actually

halfofan CBM 8250 LP with a slightly revised

ROM.

Group Code Recording.

‘TheCBM 1551. wasthenew, high-performance

drive that was designed specifically for the

Commodore Plus/4 and C-16, The 1542 was,

actually just a repackaged 1541 in a grey case

that was made available for people who didn't

want to spend the extra money for the 1551.

‘The extra cost resulted from the 1551 sporting

anew, parallel transfer method that increased

transfer rates 400%,

$012

26

$016 Sound Interface Device
Keyboard Entry Read, Network, AndLink. This
is most likely another “words after the letters”
acronym, along the lines of the PET acronym.
3.0
Igot morethan [bargained for on this question,
since there are four drives which have the same
DOS version that | feel are adequate responses
to this question, (1) The CBM D9060 and.
D9090, although I doubt the code is the same.
The D series were hard drives, (2) The 8280
Dual 8" Floppy Drive. (3)'The 1570, which was
asingle sided version of the 1571 ina 1541 case
painted to match the 128. The ROM is slightly
different, enough to makeit unrecognizable as
either a 1541 or a 1571 in some cases. (4) The
1571 land the 1571D, which is the drive in the
D, also have this DOS revision, but that
standstoreason, since they areinthe 157 line,
IMA in both modes. lam surprised Commodore
didn’t add a track or put another directory on
the back,
144,
> Calculators. They also made office equipment,
watches, adding machines, and thermostats,
hence the name “Commodore Business
Machines”.
01D The Commodore 1520, It used 4 inch wide
paper and could use 4 colors.
Modified Frequency Modulation
RREG reads the internal registers after a SYS
command, OFF gives an unimplemented
command error. QUIT does too,

»

Issue 4

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Volume 1, Number 4 27

COMMODORE WORLD

CMD ~ HARDWARE

HD-40, 42 MB (Limited Supply)
HD-40, 85 MB (Limited Supply)
HD-100, 170 MB (Special Edition)
HO-200, 270 MB (Special Edition)
10-500 / 1000

FD Series 315" Floppy Disk Drives:

FD-2000 (800K and 1.6 MB) $179.95
FD-4000 (800K, 1.6 MB and 3,2 MB) $249.95
FO Rleal-Time-Clock Option $20.00
Box of 10, High Density Disks (1.6MB) $14.95

Box of 1

{Specity computor and drive
JitlyDOS C64/SX-64 System
JiyOOS C-128/128-D System
‘Additional Orive ROM's

$59.95
$24.95

Miscellaneous Hardware:

GeoCable Il Print Cable GI./15ft sn $29.00 / $34.00
MW.350 Printer Intorface (OKIBK Butter) $49,00/$60.00
Aprotek 3-Way Usor Port Expander $30.00
Aprotok User Port Extension Cable .. $19.00
CMD's 1351 Compatible Trackball $69.95
CMD's C-1351 Compatible SmartMOUs0 ..... $49.95
Mouse Pad $2.95
Samsung SP-2412 24-pin Epson-comp, Printor $199.00
Samsung SP-0912 9-pin Epson-comp. Printer $149,00
C+128D Computer (C=Refurt, WIDOS) 0...» $199.00
C-64/64-C Computers (CMD Refurb, w/ JOOS) $75.00
1541 Disk Drivos (CMD Rofurb,whJDOS) ss...» $75.00
1541-11 Disk Drivo (roturb, w/Power Supply ... $109.00

C-64, C-64G Powor Supply (Roopairable) $39.00
-128 Power Supply (Repairable) $49.00
CMO Utities $24.05,
“ityMON-64 (ML Monitor) $19.95
Big Bluo Reader v4.10 (SOGWAP) $39,00
Tho Compression Kit (Mad Man)... +. $39,00
GEOS 64 v2.0 $44.00,
GEOS 128 v2.0 $49.00
g00Cale 64 oF gooFilo 64 a $40,00
gooCalc 128 or gooFilo 128 $45.00
(qooProgrammor $45.00
gooPublish $40.00
gooChart i $29.00
Desk Pack Plus : $29.00
FONTPACK $2500
Intemational FONTPACK $25.00
gooBASIC . $20,00
RUN GEOS Companion $20,00
RUN GEOS Powor Pak | or Il (Spocity) $20,00
gatoWay/64 or 128 (Specify Vorsion) $29.95
Collatte Utitios (Handy Geos Utities) $19.95
Perfoct Print LO for GEOS (Lasior-ike output... $49.05
QooMakeBoot (Makes Bootable copies) $12.95
‘geoSholl V2.2 (CL! for GEOS) $24.95

Dwooziis Greatost Hits (NowTools2 Stamp, Labe!126) $30.00
Books:

Anatomy of tho 1541

Basle Compiler Design for the C-64..
C64 Science & Enginoering
C128 Computor Aided Design
€128 BASIC Training Guldo....
Cassette Book for C-64 and Vic 20 ..
Commodore 64 Tricks and Tips

GEOS Programmers Reference Guide ..
Graphics Book for the C-64

Hitchhikers Guide to GEOS .nssnsnen
{Ideas tor Use on Your C-64 $12,00
Printor Book tor the C84 $12.00

Simplo Internet
‘Suporbase - Tho Book
Mi
Sonus 64 Sequen 0, Cables .. $99.00
Sonus 128 Sequencer, MIDI Interface, Cables $99.00
x $34.95

P.O. Box 646

COMMODORE WORLD

East Longmeadow, MA 01028

ORDERS:
4
RAMLIink Power-Backed RAM Disk

RRAMLink Base Modol (0K, No RAMCard) ...... $149.95,
RAMLink with 1 MB RAMCard $229.95

RAMLink with 4 MB RAMCard $349.95
Real-Timo-Clock for RAMCard (Optional) $20.00
RAMLink Battery Back-up (Optional) $24.95
Parallel Cablo (RAMLInk to HO) $14.95

BASIC 64 Compiler (Abacus) $17.00
BASIC 128 Compiler (Abacus) $25.00
Biitz! 64 Compiler (Skylos) $30.00
Bitz! 128 Compiler (Skyles) $30.00

Cobol 64 (Abacus) $17.00
Fortean 64 (Abacus)
Pascal 64 (Abacus)

Tax Perfect 64 (Free ‘94 Upgrade)
Tax Pertect 128 (Free 94 Upgrado) :
Outrageous Pages (Batteries Included) ..

PaperClip 3

Pocket Writer 2 (64) (Digtal Sol.) $65.00
Pockat Whiter 3 (64 or 128) (Digital Sol) $70.00
Pockot Plannor 2 or Pockot Filer 2(Digital Sol.) .. $35.00
‘SuporScript 64 (Precision) $15.00
SuperScript 128 (Precision) $20.00
DAta Manager 2 (Timeworks) $16.00
Suberbaso 64 Version 4.01 (Procision).. $35.00
‘Suporbaso 128 Version 3.01 (Procision) $35.00

PowerPian 64 (Abacus)
‘SwiftCale 64 (Timeworks) z
Personal Portfolio Manager (Abacus)
SEC Check Register 128
Cadpak 64 (Abacus)
Cadpak 128 (Abacus)
Chartpak 64 (Abacus)
Chartpak 128 (Abacus)

$25,00

| Paint v1.5 (128, 6001, 68k VOC) (Living Proof) $39.00
| Port v1.54 (128, #001, 64K voc) (Living Proof) $29.00
FUN Productivity Pak I, I, or Ill (Spocity) $15.00
RUN Supor Starter Pak 1541 or 1581 $20.00
RUN Works $20.00
Telecommunication
Dialoguo 128... $29,00
SpoodTorm (ABACUS) «5:04: $KOO
Swink 15-232 Cartridge (Up to 38.4K baud) .. $39.95
SwittLink Modem Cablo (DB9-DB25) $9.95
‘BOCA 2400 Baud Modem $69,00
BOCA 2400 w/SwiltLink and Cab...» $9900

BOCA 14.4K Baud Modem... $159,00
BOCA 14.4K w/SwiftLink & Cablo $189.00
‘Aprotek MiniModem C-24 (C= ready, 2400 baud) $69.00
Aprotek MiniModem C (Cs ready, 1200 baud)... $50.00
Aprotek Modem adaptor (Cs to Ext. PC Modem) $20.00

‘Aprotok Convert-a-Com(C= Modem-PC adaptor) $29.00
Acrodot $12.00
‘Atomino $17.00
Ballistix $13.00
Blood Monoy $15,00
Chomp! $10.00
Contlict in Vietnam asso $1600

F-15 Stnko Eagle
Project Stealth Fighter

16,00
$20.00

Lasor Squad $13.00
Last Ninja tl .., : $15,00
Mainframe $13,00
Marble Madness, $13.00
Menaco $15.00
Navy Seal $10.00
Red Storm Rising $16.00

Rings of Medusa $16.00

RUN C128 Funpak $15.00
RUN C64 Gamopak $15.00
Skate or Dio sens $1800
The Amazing Spidor-Man $15.00
Tho Prosident Is Missing! $10.00
Tho Throe Stooges $10.00,
Tie Groak Tennis : son, $16.00
Total Eclipse $10.00
Utima V $17.00

Creative Micro Designs, Inc.

Info: (413) 525-0023
Fax: (413) 525-0147

28

800-6

CM

3263 SOFTWARE

JittyDOS

Increase Speed Up to 1500% while
retaining 100% compatibility

* Speeds up Loading, Saving, Verifying, Formatting and Reading/
Writing of Program, Sequential, User and Relative files unlike
cartridges which only speed up Loading and Saving of PRG files

* Built-in DOS Wedge plus 17 additional features including file
copier, text dump, printer toggle, and redefinable function keys
make using your computer easier and more convenient

* ROMupgrade installs easily into most computers and disk drives.
Supports C-64, 64C, SX-64, C-128, 128-D, 1541, 1541C, 1541-
11,1571, 1581 and more.

EDSeries

3,2 and 1.6 MB 3.5" Floppy Drives
The FD-2000 and FD-4000 disk drives utilize
today’s latest 3.5 inch disk drive technology.

FD-2000's support 800K (1581 style) and

1.6 MB (High Density) formats, while the

FD-4000 also offers support for the 3.2 MB (Enhanced Density)
disk format. Fast and reliable, they support 1541, 1571 and 1581
style partitions, Native Mode partitioning and can actually read and
write 1581 disks. FD's feature built-in JiffyOOS, SWAP button and
optional Real Time Clock. High capacity, speed and compatibility
make the FD right for every application, including GEOS,

Power-Backed Expandable REU
The fastest possible form of storage,
RAMLink provides instant access to files
and retains data while your computer is
turned off. Easy to use and expandable up
to 16 MB, RAMLInk utilizes the same powerful operating system
found in CMD Hard Drives. Unlike Commodore REU's which are
compatible with less than 1% of commercial software, RAMLink
supports more than 80% of the commercial titles. RAMLink also
offers built-in JiffyOOS Kernal, SWAP feature, reset button, enable/
disable switch, pass-thru port and RAM port for REU/GEORAM use.
RAMLink offers maximum speed, expandability and compatibility
with all types of software and hardware including GEOS.

HDSeries

SCSI Hard Drive for the C-64/128
HD Series Hard Drives are available in
capacities up to 1 GB, are fully partitionable,
and can emulate 1541, 1571, & 1581 disks
while Native partitions utilize MSDOS-style
subdirectories, HD's connect easily to the serial bus or parallel via
RAMLink. Includes built-in JiffyDOS, SWAP feature and RTC. HD's
offer superior compatibility with most commercial software including
BBS, Productivity and GEOS, And with new pricing, HD Series drives
offer the lowest cost per megabyte of any C64/128 storage device.

Shipping and Handling Charges

Use the chart below to match your order subtotal with your shipping zona and method

SS

United States
‘Next

Order Subtotal Day _| Day _| HLPR [Canada |Foreton
$01-$19.90 i700 | siz00 | S00 | st500
Er) sia00 | $1400 [ s700 | $2000
moms $2000 | sis00 | #900 | $2500
3 wos 00 sam | $1000 | i200 | sasc0
$180 00-5209 08 2700 | $21.00 | $2000 | ss0.00
$000 00.5700 08 ‘ssuo0 | s2700 | s2500 | $55.00

3500 | se000

Payment and Delivery: CMO accepts MC, Visa, Money Orders, COD and Personal
Checks. Personal Checks are held for up to3 weeks, Most items are stock, contact CMD
for current dolivery schedules, Returns for merchandise credit only within 30 days with
prior authorizations, All prices and specifications are subject to change without notice,

Issue 4

$69.°°

martMouse and SmartTrack

Need Input? It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This...
$49.95

For years, Commodore set the standard with the 1351
Mouse. Sure, it was vastly superior to using the old
digital input devices like the 1350 mouse, joysticks or
imitation trackballs, But everything can be improved.
Guaranteed 100% 1351-compatible, SmartMouse and
SmartTrack do everything the C-1351 does and more!
These highly intelligent, three-button input devices
include a built-in battery-backed Real-Time Clock,
along with double-click and Turbo features for GEOS,
Plus, they come with a complete set of utilities for using
the clock in GEOS and BASIC applications. Modern
ergonomic designs make these devices smooth
operators that are a pleasure to use. So, if you're tired
of the slow, erratic movement of your current input
device, make the intelligent choice and pick up a
SmartMouse or SmartTrack today!

the Best C-64/128 Input Devices Ever!

* Three buttons means convenience! If you're a GEOS user, the left «+

button is configured as single click, the right as a handy double
click and the center button is the TURBO button. When depressed,
it doubles the speed at which the pointer moves across the screen.
Additionally, programmers can assign their own functions to all
three of the buttons.

* Unlike other third party mice or trackballs, the CMD SmartMouse
and SmartTrack trackball use the same custom gate array chip as
the Commodore C-1351 mouse. This guarantees 100% compatibility.

+ Switches easily into joystick emulation mode on power-up by

SmartMouse/SmartTrack utilize the same advanced technology used

in today's powerful 486 and Pentium PC's, providing you with

unparalleled accuracy and smoothness.

* Built-in battery-backed Real-Time Clock automatically sets the GEOS
clock, displays time and can be used in your own programs.

* Includes utilities disk and detailed manual explaining the utilities
and programming information,

* Attention Lefties! SmartMouse can be alterred for left handed use.

* Don't be fooled by the old style digital "trackballs". These only

perform as well as a joystick. SmartTrack uses analog inputs for

holding down the right button.

LOADED WITH
SPECIAL FEATURES

* Freeze Feature
Lets you save most programs
to disk without copy protection
* Centronics Interface
Use a fast GEOCABLE to
print with most software

Make fast disk and file copies
© Sprite Editor

Create and edit sprites
* ML Monitor

Examine all memory including

stack, I/O, & registers

* Blow-up
Make any portion of a picture
up to the full size of the
screen

« Message Maker
Turn any captured'screen or
graphic into a scrolling
message with music

PLUS...

* Infinite Lives Generator

* Screen Editor

* Printer Dump

* Slide Show Maker

»»» AND MORE!

Volume 1, Number 4

greater accuracy.

Tired of Fighting with Copy Protection?
Having Trouble Booting Software from a CMD Device?
Need a Back-up of Your Hard-to-Find Software?

Then It's Time To Take ACTION!

Kur
CARTIIDGE f
conus OF”

AGE! !

al POWERFUL,
SLY AND, FEATURE
leanne

eaRTRIDGE EE Ga

CONCEIVEDI~

ACTION
REPLAY
MK VI

FOR THE C64 OR C128 IN 64 MODE

COMMODORE WORLD

29

COPYRIGHTS

WHO OWNS THE RIGHT TO COPY?

As early as 1710 the British recognized the need
forauthors tobe protected from those who would
misuse theirwork. Today theconceptofcopyright
has been expanded, giving any author automatic
ownership of anything he creates until well after
his death. Anything you create (as long as no one
elsecreatedan identical work before you}
and only you have the right to reproduce
are rarely tough luck stories about the author
who forgot to register his work. If the author can
prove that he created a disputed work, or that the
defendant hadaccess to the author's work, they've
won the case.

LOADSTAR buys thousands of dollars worth
of software every month. This means that we deal
with many authors. Occasionally we'll come
acer author who so fears that we'll steal his
program that he’s too much trouble to deal with.
It is generally agreed that established reputable
companies don't steal work. The reason is most
companies would rather pay the author than live
foreverin fear ofa lawsuit. Thesoftware company,
whether it wins or not, will end up paying more
than what the product was worth in the first
place—and watch its reputation suffer.

For works created on or after January 1, 1978,
the 1976 Copyright Act defines the term of
copyright by the life of the author(s) plus 50
years—instead of the previous term of 28 years
(renewable for another 28)—measured usually
from the date of first publication. A good example
oftheold copyrightis the movie“It’sa Wonderful
Life” whose owners failed to renew the copyright,
leaving the movie to the public domain after a
dismal box office showing. Because it’s free “PD
TV", alla television station has to dois get a good
print of it and they can show (upload) the movie
forever without having to pay anyone. This
couldn't happen today unless the owner willfully
released the work into the public domain. Even
then the owner has every right to release the title
with conditionsattached, asis donein shareware.

Since your work is not tangible, and many
copies may bemade ofan original, thecopyrighted
property of the author is said to be “intellectual
property,” and the author has the exclusive right
tocopy and sell his work. Usually the author sells

COMMODORE WORLD

By Jely Jones

or gives other parties the right to reproduc
sell his work. Anauthor will often forfeit the ri
to sell the work on his own for an agreed period.
In this case an author could be sued for pirating
his own work ifhe were to distribute it to anyone.

Various industries have a history of irrational
fear of counterfeiters. When VCRs firstappeared,
therewasindustry-wide paranoia of pirates taping
TheSix Million Dollar Manand somehow finding
customers. As a matter of principle, the movie
makers felt that no one had the right to record
their work and they fought it for years. Now that
thenetworks know that VCRs mean higher rating
(because people can watch two things instead of
one), there's no problem. Movie makers can
almost guarantee a break-even movie because
they eventually make up their box office losses in
rental receipts.

Software manufacturers, however, have a real
reason to be paranoid. People copy programs
and share them. I don’t know a single person who
hasn’thad access toat least one pirated work. My
first copy of LOADSTAR was a pirated copy.
Even people who don’t consider themselves
pirates probably haveat least one illegal program
that they found on a disk and failed to destroy.

You can't copy and sell a Stephen King novel
withouta$500,000 printing press—noonewould
want your low-quality copy. But with an $80
drive you can make perfect digital copies of
programs and sell them.

Because every computer can digitally copy
software, computer copyright laws seem more
stringent. The law tries to understand that users
haye a right to back up software, but the letter of
the law remains a bit too strict. For instance,
“tough” legislation (law 102-561) signed by
President Bush in late 1992 says you can be
considered a pirate if you have ten copies of one
software package in your possession. That's
reasonable. But you can also be thought a pirate
if you have one copy of ten different software
packages! If the value ofyour backed up software
adds up to more than $2500, an overzealous or
truly computerilliterate prosecutor canrunaway
with it. Couple that with up to 4 years in prison
and $250,000in fines. Unreasonable, particularly

30

when most software packages make the effort to
tell users to back up the software to preserve the
original. Youcan only hope that ifyou'rearrested,
the policeman is computer literate.

The processof manufacturing and distributing
a product without the permission of the owner is
called pirating. Some people feel thatifthey don't
make a profit, they are not morally challenged.
These peopledon't realize that when they become
so excited about a product that they copy and
share it, that they are preventing a sale and
damaging the author or publisher.

At 65 percent, the US has highest rate of legal
software use, according to the Business Software
Alliance (BSA). Because our market is so larg
the US is also the leader in losses due to pir:
estimated at $2.3 billion for 1993. Europe has a
61% piracy rate, followed by 11 countries in the
Middle East, Africa, India and Pakistan region
(85%), Latin America (83%), and Asia (79%).

In everyday situations, copyright cannot be
argued. If a someone hands a friend a disk of
copyrighted material, and the friend accepts it,
they're both committing a crime. It's perfectly
legal to sell and trade software—as long as the
software isoriginal, andall backupsare destroyed,

If the author didn’t release the work to the
public domain, it is not in the public domain. It
doesn’t matter how many bulletin boards the
program appears on, and it doesn’t matter that
there's no copyright message. Leaving the
message off doesn’t prevent the author from
suing, although he may not be entitled to court
costs because of it. In certain limited cases, use of
acopyrighted workis allowed without perm
ofthe copyright owner under the doctrine of
use” aswellas numerous other exceptions dealing
generally with nonprofit, charitable, or
educational uses of copyrighted works.

Since the demise of Commodore, rumors have
abounded. Voices have declared—in error—that
since Commodore is to liquidate, its intellectual
'y (software and technology) is “up for
grabs.” | hate to use stock phrases, but nothing
could be farther from the truth. It’s a common
misconception thata defunct company’s products
aresuddenly publicdomain. Thisnotion iswholly

Issue 4

wrong, tantamount to saying that the property
ofan evicted tenant, set out on the street by the
landlord, is “free pickings” to any passerby.
Sure, people do it, but it’s still illegal. I've
witnessed people take property this way, but
never while the sheriffis on the premises. Orion
pictures has closed its doors, but RoboCop isa
commodity that’s still bought and sold—
making money. Someone still owns it.

Beyond the fair use doctrines, many authors
and publishers will allow reproductions of
portions of their work for news and review.
‘Though thecover ofamagazineis copyrighted,
the publisher wantsall the publicity he can get.
Ifyou reproduce that cover in your newsletter,
he'll probably appreciate it, fair use or not.
What that publisher won't like is for you to
reproduce his cover without his logo for your
own purposes. More that, the
photographer who owns the picture on the
cover might just send you a bill.

Publishers have copyright battles. Apple
sued Microsoft for billions over Windows.
‘Thereare other battles: Lotus/Borland, Apple/
Microsoft/Hewlett-Packard, Sega/Accolade,
OnOctober8, 1992, theSupreme Court upheld
the decisions of two federal courts, the last
being the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that
Symantec’s Grandview did not violate
copyrights on Brown Bag’s PC-Outline package.
Symantec's Attorney Mitchell Zimmerman
said: “The Brown Bag decision is part of an
important emerging trend, limiting the scope
of copyright protection for computer
programs. The decision makes it easier for
defendants to dispose of baseless ‘look and
feel’ infringement claims.”

In recent years “reverse engineering” has
been challenged. Reverse engineering is the
act of examining an operating system or a
device, and then figuring tocreateoriginal
products for it. In August 1992, the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved an
injunction by the Federal District Court that
game producer Accolade could not sell or
develop new game titles for the Sega Genesis
game system. The extensive paperwork in this
landmark decision outlining the reasoning of
the court has yet to be released.

Sometimes the owner ofa workcan overstep
the bounds of reason in protecting his product.
One thing is very reasonable: if there is a price
on a software package, that price should be
paidtothe owner oranauthorized distributor,
Furthermore, ifa program isn’tclearly marked
in some way to indicate that it is freely
distributable, the only legal way to add it to
your collection is to buy it. ©

than

Volume 1, Number 4

HARD Tips

BUILD A SIMPLE RS-232C INTERFACE

By Doug Cotton

Commodore users today often find themselves
trying to adapt our vintage machines to current
standards. And while there have been many
RS-232 interfaces available in the past, the
selection is dwindling quickly. In fact, there are
only two choices commercially available these
days to fill this void: Aprotek’s COM-MODEM.
Adapter and CMD's SwiftLink, Each of these are
quite usable formodem connection, but only the
COM-MODEM Adapter will operate with older
software written only forthe User port (SwiftLink
attaches to the Expansion port, and requires
compatible software), The problem with the
COM-MODEM Adapteris that it won't work for
null-modem transfers to other computers because
itdoesn't use the +/-12 Volt standard, Hardware
‘hackers’ should appreciate that the circuitin this
issue will provide the correct voltages for
null-modem connections. While I intended on
including a circuit diagram for making a
null-modem adapter, it costs less to buy than to
build using Radio Shack parts, If you need the

River Falls, Minnesota (1-800-344-4539). Their
part number is EDC305240-ND, and the cost is
$2.14 in single quantities. This connector can be
soldered to the recommended perfboard, If you
plan to order from them, they also stock most of
the other parts, generally for a much lower cost.

You can also substitute for the connector and
wire I chose for this project—I selected ribbon
cable and an insulation displacement connector
for ease of assembly. You could just as easily use
round cable with at least 9 conductors, and a
solder-cup DB-25 male connector (RS#276-1547
@ $1.49). You should naturally purchase a
suitable hood for this connector as well (RS#
276-1549 @ $1.19 s will reduce the overall
cost of the project as well.

Finally, you'll need all the usual ‘hacker’
goodies, like hookup wire, soldering iron, solder,
wire cutters and wire strippers. And be sure to
watch polarity on the capacitors and diodes!

RS-232 Interface Parts List

A Qty. Description RS Part # Price Total
adapter, just pick up RS# 26-1496 for $4.99, 1 DB-25 Male Connector 276-1659 $3.99 $3.99
Whileall the electronics partsshownareeasily 4 25 Cond. Ribbon Cable 278-772 3.59 3.59
available from a local Radio Shack, there isone 1 — MC1488 Line Driver I 276-2520 1.28 1.29
item you'llneed that youmay have some trouble 1 MC1489 Line Revr. IG 276-2621 1.28 1.20
locating: a 12 position/24 contact card edge 8 — 1N4001 Diode 276-1101 49 1.47
connector compatible with the User port. These 4 100)4/85V Elect. Cap. aa he 2s
are available from Digi-Key Corporation in Thief Tai Riogete Rerfocaes is 278: i!
USER PORT
1s
DB-25M
(cola
Mle Si ' 1x0
b+ 205 1 DTR
earn 4'o | ATS
14
cote ' PGND
ye
T , S.GND
ot
ot
246 | RxD
84 | psR
Si \cts
a ' Deb
'

31

COMMODORE WORLD

0)
THe NEW
Graphies
rlhince

Fun Graphics Machine, by Ron

Hackley; $24.95 plus $3.50 S&H (clip
art, font disks and keyboard overlays
also available); The FGM Connection,
P.O. Box 2206, Roseburg, OR 97470.

It's been a long time since the
March/April 1992 issue of RUN
magazine. In that issue | reviewed
Fun Graphics Machine. Since then,
Thave to admit, I've pretty much left
all my graphics and desktop
publishing chores to GEOS, since as
most of you know by now, I'm a
confirmed GEOS-aholic; | stayed
with what I knew and was
comfortable with.

Sowhen theeditorofCommodore
World asked me to write a review of
FGM, [had to doa little searching, I
still had the disks, of course, (and
even knew where they were, pretty
much), so in that way it was no
trouble. | remembered some ofwhat
I'd done with the program all those
years ago, and even remembered
Where the box with the keyboard
overlays and printouts was. When |
found the manual (spiral bound to
lay flat, by the way), I wandered
through it foranhourorsotoremind
myself of some of the finer points,
‘Then I booted up the program and

COMMODORE WORLD

started to play around little, and it
didn’t take long for things to come
back to me. It also didn’t take long
for me to arrive at some of the same
conclusions | had arrived at a few
years ago.

Beforel jabber on about the little
details, though, I think I'd better get
the number one question settled.
What exactly does the Fun Graphics,
Machine do, anyway? If you ask an
FGM fan that question, you'll
probably hear the answer
“Everything!” Inasensethey'reright,
although that isn’t really very
informative. The ads for FGM
that it will create
everything from business cards to
video titles, but even that only gives
a general impression of what the
program itself does. Yes, it can be
used to do desktop publishing. Yes,
it is amazingly versatile. But what
the heck does it actually do?

FGM is first and foremost a high-
resolution graphics editor that
allows users to put existing
elements—text and graphics—
wherever they want to for the
creation a screeen image. In other
words, if you want the screen to say
“Welcome to our home” witha little
pictureofahousein thecorner, FGM
will let you do that. If you want the
house to be a different size or the
text to be written with hollowed out
letters, FGM will let you do that too.
FunGraphics Machine lets you place
textandgraphicsanywhere you want
on the screen and then gives you
tools to modify, adjust, distort, and
alterthem tocreateexactly thescreen

design you're looking for. Then,
FGM will print that screen out.
So far so good. But let me not
few things about what | just said,
that will help explain exactly
what FGM is and does. First of all,
note that you need to have the
graphics you want to use before you
get going with FGM. Fun Graphics
Machine is not a paint or a draw
program. Secondly, FGM does
printing. That's important; it’s
where alot ofthe power of FGM lies.
Let's look at that first point a little
closer. FGM takes exisistingartwork
and puts it to use in new ways. You
can import graphic images from
quite a few sources, including Print
Shop graphics, high-resolution
bitmaps, and even multi-color
screens, and place them on the
sereen, Once there, those graphics
can be smoothed, distorted, and
changed into the image you really
want. This is a lot like what Print
Shop does—taking artwork and
placing it on the screen—but with a
much, much larger selection of tools.
Also, FGM no pre-set places
where the graphics have togo, which
means you are limited only by your
own creativity, The graphics tools
include smoothing and slanting of
any size area of the scre
The second point, the printing,
comes into play once you've created
a screen or series of screens. Here
M behaves a lot like Newsroom,
g the screens you create

pu
together on a page. Unlike
Newsroom, however, you have
complete control overthe placement

32

of the various screens and even over
the resolution ofthe printout ofeach
one (which affects the area that
screen takes up ona page). You can,
forexample, printa page made up of
three screens stacked one on top of
the other. You could also print a
page consisting of eight screens
printed in two columns of four,
rather like Newsroom does. The
printer drivers in FGM are superb,
offering pretty much any resolution
your printer can manage. Each
different resolution, in other words
each different number of dots per
inch, results in a different sized
printout, so you can fine tune your
final document by adjusting the
resolution of the various sections.

Fun Graphics Machine, then, is
similar in m any ways to Print Shop
and Newsroom. Itallows you to take
graphics and text and use them to
create a printed document, The
variety of options, however, for
graphics manipulation and for
printing, leave those other programs
in the dust. Fun Graphics Machine
willlet you do pretty much anything
you can imagine with graphics on a
page.

I called Ron Hackley, the author
of the program, and found out that
there have been no major upgrades
since the last copy I received, so |
booted up the disk I hadanddovein,
When I started working with FGM
againafterafewyears, Ifound myself
impressed all over again. Fun
Graphics Machine is an incredibly
powerful program. There are
options for smoothing that even

Issue 4

GEOS can'tmatch. FGM can import
a multicolor screen better than any
high-resolution program I've ever
seen, And the options for printing
are astounding. I was pleased with
FGM back then, and Istillam today.

All my impressions weren't rosey
before, though, andas I workedwith
the program | realized that | still
have the same concerns now that I
had a few years ago, FGM is a very
complicated program to use. There
are several different modes of
operation with almost identical
functions. I assume that memory
constraints were the reason for this,
but that doesn’t make it any less
confusing. The entire program
keyboard

operates using
combinations, often involving three
keys at a time. These are not
particularly intuitive in many cases;
I found myself constantly groping
for the manual or poring over my
keyboard overlay. Granted, it didn’t
take me long to memorize the ba
commands, but I didn'twanttolimit
myself just to the basics. A set of
onscreen drop-down menus or a
movable toolbox would go a long
way toward makingthesystem easier

ic

touse, as well as making some of the
more esoteric functions more
accessable and easier to try out. The
joystick is used to place graphics,
butit isn’t used to select areas of the
page to manipulate, which would
seem a logical job for the joystick to
do. Fir

, the manual, while chock

full of excellent information, is
daunting indeed. The introduction
suggests that you use the manual as
reference, reading the sections that
you find youneed, but sincemany of
FGM'sfunctionsare hard toimagine
untilyou try them, 'mnot sure what

will induce someone to find out
about them.

Now I'm sure some of you will
accuse me of being biased in what
I'm saying. I stated right up front
that (OS fan, and many of
my com! 4 sound
like | SEOS, with its
intuitive interface and less-cluttered
documentation. It’s true, I do find
GEOS far more intuitive and
user-friendly. But Fun Graphics

Volume 1, Number 4

Machine isn’t GEOS any more than
it is Print Shop or Newsroom. It
shares some of the characteristics of
each of those other programs, true,
butitismore powerful in some ways
than any of them. What is
unfortunate is that it's interface is
difficult enough that all that power
is likely to go to waste, and it’s not
just my GEOS addiction talking
when I say that.

I asked Ron about some of this
and he explained to me that he
preferred to use the limited memory
space of the 64 to add more features
and capabilities to the program
instead ofsuchnicetiesasan intuitive
interface. He does have a point and
FGM certainly has enormous
capabilities. I'm just afraid that in
this day and age when computer
programs are expected to be user-
friendly and intuitive as well as
powerful, F will be abandoned
by users who don't care to dig
through the manual every time they
want to desktop publish something.

But the fact of the matter is, you

can do amazing things with Fun

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Graphics Machine, and once you get
over the initial learning curve, you'll
find yourself having a ball. The
keyboard overlays are a great help,
-flat manual does have
plenty ofillustrations and examples

and the

as well as a multi-page summary of
all the functions and their i
commands and a comprehensive

index. You can import a great many
types of graphics into the prog)
and thereisevenafantasticselection
of clip art disks available in FGM
format. The priceis very reasonable,
when compared to the

am

especially
priceofaGEOSsystem with thesame
capabilities. On top of all that, Ron
provides excellent customer support
and honestly usesandenjoyshisown
program. Whenitall comesdown to
it, then, | can sincerely say that |
recommend Fun Graphics Machine
highly. Buy it. it. But keep in
mind that it may take some time to
get really going with FGM. Give it
the chance, though; it's worth it.

+ Steve Vander Ark

33

Cw & RUN BACK ISSUES

For years, RUN Magazine provided Commodore Users
with a great source of information, and now CMD has

given you Commodore World.

or any 12 for only $24.00

RMJAN88 January 1988 RMOCT89 October 1989
RMFEB88 February 1988 RMSP89 Special Issue 1989
RMMAR88 March 1988 RMJANSO January 1990
RMAPR88 April 1988 RMMAYS90 May 1990
RMMAY88 May 1988 RMJUN9O June/July 1990
RMJUN88 June 1988 RMDEC90 December 1990
RMJUL88 July 1988 RMJAN91 Jan/Feb 1991
RMFEB89 February 1989 RMJAN92 Jan/Feb 1992
RMMAY89 May 1989 RMMAR92 March/April 1992
RMJUN89 June 1989 RMMAY92 May/June 1992
RMJUL89 July 1989 RMJUL92 July/August 1992
RMAUG89 August 1989 RMSEP92 Sep/October 1992
RMSEP89 September 1989 RMNOV92 Nov/December 1992

Shipping: 3 or 6 issues - U.S. $3.00, Canada $5.00, Foreign $15.00;
12 issues U.S. $5.00; Canada $7.00; Foreign $20.00.

cwi-1
cw1-2

Shipping: U.S. and Canada $2.00 per issue; Foreign $5.00 per issue.

am TO ORDER CALL 1-800-638-3263

Volume 1, Number 1

information slip away—fill in the voids in your library now!

RUN Magazine Back Issues
Any 3 issues for $12.00, any 6 for $18.00,

r any 3 for only $12.00

cw1-3
Volume 1,Number2 CW1-4

Don't let this valuable

Back Issues

Volume 1, Number 3
Volume 1, Number 4

COMMODORE WORLD

EE SENET
tent !
t )

ny %i
i) "

Menace
Psygnosis
Available from CMD

Menaceisashoot-em up space game
from Psygnosis, the creators of the
infamous Lemmings game. Your
mission, should youbebraveenough
to accept it, is to destroy the planet
Draconia, At the beginning of game
play you may choose between a
normal game or an expert game. In
the expert mode, collisions with the
scenery will reduce your ship's
protective shield, There's even a
feature which toggles between
relaxing space-cruising music and
weapon sound effects. Menace
entices you to conquer each ofit’s six
levels for the reward of viewing the

unique new graphics and aliens of

thenextlevel. Todo so, you must try
todefeat the waves ofspace creatures
and kill the guardian which awaits
you at the end of each level. As you
travel through the game you colle

weapons by defeating an attack
wave. The last alien to be destroyed
in the wave will turn into a bonus.
icon which depicts either a feature
or a weapon. The features and
weapons range from a 1000 point
bonus to lasers and cannons to the
very hard to receive full shield
recovery. The graphics, music/
sound effects, and unique looking
creatures make Menace enjoyable!
Menace is not as easy as most space
games. 'veplayedit quitea fewtimes
while preparing this review and I

COMMODORE WORLD

still haven’tconquered thefirst level.
But, Iwill because Ijust have to get to
the next level to greet the next wave
of awesome aliens!

- Sherry Freedline

n0s76

ES

The Amazing Spider.
Paragon
Available from SSI and CMD

The Amazing Spider-Man from
Paragon Software Corporation
requires the best of your problem
solving skills to rescue Mary Jane
from Mysterio. Mysterio has taken
Mary Jane, wife of Parker, hostage.
Parkeris, of course, Spider-Man. All
that's been left behind is a note
directing Parker tomeet Mysterioat
the old Rockwell Studios. Once
there, Mi
unconscious with a jet of gas
Spider-Man is awakened by
Mysterio's voice daring him to find
his way through the studio to his
secret inner sanctum where he is
holding Mary Jane captive. Failure
to do so will result in Mary Jane's
death. And the game begins! Spidey
must make his way through the
studio’s rooms which are divided
into film sets. These film sets have
ly designed by Mysterio
‘ssearcha challenge.
The sets contain robots, electrified
floors, fake doors, chemically coated
walls, and upside-down and
sideways gravity. Spidey’s webs are
useless on the walls which have been
chemically coated. Spidey must

terio renders Spider-Man

Later,

beenspe

climbwallsand ceilings, walk, crawl,
and shoot and swing from his webs
onhissearch for Mary
also use his best Spider sense to
master the series of switches that
control Mysterio's tricks. Althought
the game contains 250 screens, the
graphics and sound were average.
But, the game play is challenging
and thought provoking. Themanual
is very detailed and helpful. If you
enjoyagood puzzle, you'll enjoy The
Amazing Spider-Man.

- Sherry Freedline

ne. Hemust

Marble Madness
Electronic Arts
Available fron S'

and CMD

Marble Madness is a maddeningly
de gameforoneortwo
players from Will Harvey and
Electronic Arts. The object of the
toroll the marble to the goal
line. Sounds simple, right? Well, it’s
far from it! Ifyou are playing the one
player version, you must compete
against a clock. Complete a level
before time runs out and the
remaining time is added to the time
in the next level. In the two player
version, the game becomes a race to
the goal line between you and your
opponent. Throw in a 3-D terrain
with marble-hating creatures such
as Steelies, Pounding Hammers, and
Marble Munchers and you've got
quite a challenge on your hands.
Steering the rollingmarble downhill
in a straight and narrow path is by

34

no means an easy task. Gravity adds
to the difficulty of the game. It
influences the marble’s movements.
just as it would in real life. The game
can be played with either a joystick
ortrackball, Andaftera brainstorm,
1 found it even works with CMD's
newSmartMouse! TheSmartMouse
provided extrasteering flexibility for
all those close corners in the game.
Marble Madness contains six
different levels each containing their
own musical score. The colorful
graphicsare, ofcourse, excellentjust
as we've come to expect from
Electronic Arts. The manual consists
of a small sheet of paper with the
necessary loading information. But
then, that'sallyou'll needastherul
and object of the game are quite
simple. Now, there’s only one
remaining question... Can you
complete this game with all YOUR
marbles intact?

Skate or Die
Electronic Arts
Available from SS and CMD

Skate or Die: It's “RAD”...it's
“BAD”...it'samust-have classicfrom
Electronic Arts! This is by far one of
themost enjoyable games!'ve played
yy the folks at Electronic Arts, What
makes this game so fun? Well, to
begin with, the colorful graphiesand
musicare fantastic! The punkrocker
characters of Poseur Pet, Aggro
Eddie, and Lester provide various

Issue 4

levels of challenge as opponents on
thoselonely days. But, for those days
when you havea full house, Skate or
Die can accommodate up to eight
players! Skate or Die features five
far-out events for you to show off
such skateboard feats as Kickturns,
Rock-n-Rolls, Footplants, Ollie Ai
and Aerials. What? You don’t know
how to do these stunts? Never fear,
detailed instructions are provided

in the rad manual, You can choose
to practice or compete with these
skills in the Pool Joust, Downhill
Race, Freestyle Ramp, Highjump
Ramp, or a Downhill Jam. This
article is way to brief to go into the
all the different available events so
I'll just tell you about my favorite
one. The Downhill Race is the best
event to start out in. There is no
competition buta clock. The goal of
this event is to complete the course
within one and half minutes. Extra
points are awarded for skating over,
under, and through the different
obstacles along the course. If you've

got the courage you can attempt to
skate through a pipe, jump grates
and wooden horses, or even take a
leap from a ramp and attempt to
landinanupright position. But, even
if my favorite event doesn't seem to
interest you, there are still four more
events to choose from. One of them
is sure to leave youas punk as Lester
and his friends!

- Sherry Freeilline

Laser Squad
Microlllusions
Available from SSI and CMD

Microillusions' Laser Squad isa one
or two player action/strategy game.

The Laser Squad is a team of the
galaxies’ best fighters specializingin
weapons, and
infiltration. They exist solely tosolve
themostimpossibleofmissions! The
game is played by you and an
opponent, computer or friend,

maneuvers

taking turns controlling your unit of

humans, droids or other creatures,
Each member of your unit is
allocated a numberof Action Points,

The number of Action Points
determine the amount of activity a
unit member may perform during a
turn, Activities may include
movement, combat actions, and
object manipulation, Each action
decreases the number of Action
Points. The player ends his turn
when all the Action Points for each
unit member have been used. The
other player then takes his turn
which is hidden from his opponent.
If a friend is your opponent, the
sereen must be hidden from the
other player during each turn. The
first side to acquire 100 Victory

Points wins the game, These points
are won in various ways depending
on the scenario you are playing.
Eliminating enemy units or
destroying certain installations are
r 's to obtain Victory Points.
Microillusions has packed the game
with five different scenarios. Besides
a unique new cause to fight for, each

s ios contain excellent
ying skill levels and
require different time frames to
complete. Fortunately, games in
progress may be saved to disk for
completion at a later date. Las
Squad is not a game to be pl
right out of the package. Reading
the detailed manual is imperative
along with a few practice games. But
the rewards are rich. Innotimeatall
you'll be so deeply engrossed in
planning your strategic moves that
you'll find yourself losing track of
the time and day.

- Sherry Freedline

1)

NEW GAME!
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in:
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1

Adults and children alike will enjoy this game!

Explore caves, secret areas, graveyard and

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Volume 1, Number 4

35

Data Acquisition and Control Interface
C-64 & C-128
Only $79 While Supplies Last

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Create your own autostart dedicated controller without relying
on a disk drive.

* Socket for standard ROM cartridge.

* 40 buffered digital output lines.

* 40 separate digital input lines.

* Includes extensive documentation and program disk,

Telephone for detailed brochure.
Order Model SS100 Plus, $79 + $5 shipping

Serious about programming?
* Symbol Master Multipass Symbolic Disassembler $39.95

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SPHERETRON (Formerly Schnedter Systems)
25 Eastwood Rd.
P.O, Box 5964
Asheville, North Carolina 28813
Telephone: (704) 274-4646 Visa/Mastercard

COMMODORE WORLD

Boca 144EW Fax/Data Modem

Product: Boca Research M144EW
14.4Kbps Fax/Data Modem
Firmware: —v1.410-AS29 (ati3)

Data Pump: 144DPi Rev CA (ati6)

Primary Features

FAX: GroupIII, Class 1&2, V.17, V.27ter, V.29
and V.21 modes (14,400 to 300bps)
DATA:V.32bis (14,400bps), V.32 (9600bps),
V.22, V.22bis (1200/2400bps), Bell 212A
(1200bps), Bell 103 (300bps).

ERROR CORRECTION: V.42 and MNP2-4
DATA COMPRESSION: bis and MNP5 for
up to 57,600bps throughput.

Boca modems are made in the U.'
covered by a 5 year warranty.

. and are

Appearance & Package Contents
‘The modem is housed in an attractive, low profile,
anodized texture type case (7.5" x 5.5" x
The front panel has an array of eight LED
indicators which show the status of the following
lines and conditions:

TM - Test Mode
AA- Auto Answer
HS - High Speed

OH - Off Hook

SD - Send Data

RD - Received Data
‘TR- Terminal Ready
CD - Carrier Detect

The rear panel has two RJ-L1 phonejacks,a power
switch, and a 25 pin RS-232 port. The modem is
securely packaged ina 16.5" x 4"'x 6.5" boxalong
with a 78 page manual, an RJ-11 phone cable, the
AC poweradapter,a9-pin to 25-pin cable,a9-pin
to 25-pin adapter (allows use on both 25 and 9
pin RS-232 ports), and an IBM MS-DOS and
Windows FAX program on 3.5" HD disks.
Introductory software for commercial on-line
services is also included.

COMMODORE WORLD

Equipment Used for Testing
Computers: Commodore 128 with SwiftLink-232
high speed serial cartridge interface, Commodore
128 with an Omnitronix RS-232 interface,
Commodore Amiga 1200, Atari 800 XL, and an
IBM PS/1,

Other modems used: Universal Data Systems
1200, U.S. Robotics Sportster 14.4Kbps, Telebit
PEP 2400, Supra 2400, SupraFAXmodem
9600Kbps, SupraFAXmodem 14.4Kbps, USR
Dual Standard HST.

Software used: Omnil28 BBS, Desterm 128
v2.0, Dialogue 128 on the C-128, JrComm
1.02, GPFax on the Amiga, Bobterm for Atari
800x1, QModem Pro for the IBM PS/1.

Operating Tests
ith great anticipation that | connected the
4 tomy 128/SwiftLink setup, as Ineeded
to find the correct modem settings for use with
my BBS software (other sysops also were
ing for the proper setup).
First, 1 put the modem online in a simple
terminal and reset the modem to it’s defaults via
at &f&el &d2 &r1. Then, Isent some commands
which are used toset upa Supra modem (another
Rockwell technology modem) for my software.
1“called” the Boca from another computerand
terminal using all the standard baud rates and
error correction and compression modes to see
what kind of responses it gave. All responses
matched those shown in the manual,
similar to the SupraFAXmodem, so I se
try running my BBS with it.

On the first attempt at calling the BBS,
something was obviously wrong. | made it back
into the BBS terminal mode to check the modem.
The “at&v" command revealed some registers
had changed. lattributed this to the initial power
upcycle. Afterrestoring the modem toits defaults
via at&fand setting a few of the other registers to
emulate the Supra’s programmed responses, |
wasin business! From that point, wasabletotest
drive the modem on my BBS for several weeks,
and also develop some other strings for use in the

anxiously wai

ind were
about to

36

network section. Operation as the BBS host
modem was very reliable, and better than the
Supra ina few ways:

~ Connecttimesfor"direct” modes (such as 2400

direct) were between 5 and 7 seconds faster

(than my SupraFAX 9600). This includes 4800

and 9600 direct.

‘The modem runs very cool to touch. Even in

80° F ambient temperature, the modem was

barely lukewarm, sure signs of a low-power
consumption chipsetand long-term reliability.

- Download transfer times at 14.4Kbps were
often over 100 CPS (characters per second)
faster than my U.S.R. Sportster, Downloading
from my BBS using Ymodem-g yielded 1389
CPS, and from high speed Amiga systems, up
to 1650 CPS!

- Some modem types, such as one of the two
UDS 1200's which would not connect to the
Supra at all, had no problem linking up with
the Boca MI44EW.

Error Correction & Compression
Error correction protocols were designed to
capture and eliminate interference present on
the phone line. In the Boca, those used are MNP
2 through 4, and V.42. Their operation is
generally transparent to the user.

Compression protocols are quite different, and
were designed to increase the throughput
between the computer and modem at either end
of the line. The Boca supports MNP-5, and
V.42biscompression. MNP-5is the lesser used of
the two, and has the potential to double
throughput on textand similarun-crunched data,
but will actually slow down a transfer if
compressed files are sent. V.42bis, on the other
hand, is intelligent enough to disable it's
compression mode if dense data is encountered,
and turn it back on when appropriate. Many
modem manuals recommend not using error
correction or compression unless a streaming
protocol such as Zmodem or Ymodem-G is to be
used—the reason being that it would be

Issue 4

redundant to error check the same data twice. Of
course, the Boca modem provides several ways to
disable such connection types (Note: Error
correction and compression can also adversely
effect the handshaking methods of some
protocols; Punter isa prime example, which may
or may not synehronize with V.42bis or MNP-5
depending on the baud rate, phone company
packeting system, or other arcane factors), In
practice, you will get the fastest transfer rates
with direct, or “normal” connectionsat any baud
rate, unless you are transferring text.

Conclusions
‘The Boca 14.4Kbpsisa well engineered unit, with
enough configuration possibilities to fulfill any
requirements from the simplest of terminals to
advanced customized BBS's, Although I could
not test the FAX options with my SupraFAX
software, | have no reason to doubt it works with
thesupplied programsunder DOS and Windows.
- Brian Bell

Speed Tests

Though the results can vary widely
depending on line conditions, computer
type, drive type, software, and interface
type, these tests should help give youan
idea of what to expect when using the
Boca as a host modem.

C-128 w/SwiftLink-232,
running Omni128 BBS.
Amiga 1200, JRComm 1.02
: Text.txt (76,800 bytes)

Downloading at 14.4Kbps

V.42bis Direct
Protocol cPS cPS
Ymodem-g 1386 n/r
Ymodem-1k+pre-ack” 1385, 1381
Ymodem-1k+plain ack 1070 875

Downloading at 2400bps

Direct

Protocol cPS
Ymodem-g nr
Ymodem-1k+pre-ack” 240
Ymodem-1k+plain ack 216
Punter 163 - 170
Xmodem Checksum 187+
Xmodem CRC 182

“Note: pre-ack is a custom type of X or
Ymodem handshake which is fast, but it
cannot recover if an error occurs, similar to
Ymodem-g.

Volume 1, Number 4

The Boca 2400

Easy and Reliable
Telecommunications

Writing
there's

boutsomething complicated is easy—
a lot to write about. Not so with
something that just plugs in and is easy to use!
The Bocamodem 2400 (Boca 2400 from here
on)issturdy, compact, and ideal asa first modem
orasan upgrade from 300/1200 baud modems,

Hardware Connections

First, lets deal with the only “difficult” part—
that of connecting the modem to the computer.
‘The Boca is designed for use with all computers,
and as such, Commodore 64 or 128 users will
32 interface (such as the
Aprotek Com-Modem adapter, or a SwiftLink
cartridge). The interface allows the computer
and modem to communicate with each other
correctly. Actually the interface is the hardest
part towrite about, though not because they are

need either an RS~

complicated—far from it. Youjust plug one end.
into the User Port and the other end connects to
the modem with a cable (usually a DB-25 pin
serial cable). The cable doesn’t come with the
modem, and usually doesn’t come with the
interface, either, so you will have to buy
separately. The hard part is finding an RS-2:
interface—most I've found have been used!
‘Taking a quick look at various catalogs, the
Aprotek adapters are available commercially
and ofcourse the SwiftLink cartridge isavailable
from CMD. While I don’t want it to appear that
I'm promoting Creative Micro Designs products
in their own magazine, there is some logic to
using a SwiftLink—even with a 2400 baud
modem. You see, SwiftLink is easy to find
commercially, and you don't need a science
degree to use it; and if you later decide to buy a
fastermodem, you'llalready havewhat youneed
he cable needed for

one

2

There! The hump is over—the modem is
connected to either an R:
SwiftLink cartridge, which is connected to the
computer. Taking a look at a pamphlet for PC
users that comes with the Boca 2400, however,
ciate that we Commodore

2 interface or a

makes meappre
have it easy when it comes to modems, In big
bold letters the pamphlet states: “READ ME
FIRST!";itthen explainsin detail how to connect
the modem to the PC, which sounds much more
difficult than finding an interface and plugging
it into our Commodore 64 or 128 computers.

ers

37

Connecting to the World

Once I had the Boca 2400 plugged in and ready
tobeused, [loadedmy term program and found
that the term thought the modem was already
online, as if | had connected to a BBS already.
This is fairly common with new modems, so it
didn’t phase me. Some come pre-set at the
factory configured in a certain way, on of which
isthe exact opposite for what we needed. | simply
used the standard Hayes AT commands and
while in terminal mode typed: AT &C1 &D2
<RETURN> which caused my term program to

realize | wasn’t on-line, So I wouldn't have to
deal with this again, | typed AT &W, which
saved my changes to the modem's memory.
This was as “technical” as I had to get with the
Boca 2400, as I simply set my term program to
dial at 2400 baud, dialed, connected, and

checked out what was new on the various bulletin
boards with it, Regardless of which term
program [usedor what bulletin boardsor online
services I dialed, I had the same results: fast,
easy connections, and reliable data
transmissions. Aside from changing the Data
Carrier Detect (AT &C1) and the Data Terminal
Ready (AT &D2), [didn't have to change any of
the other AT or S-Register settings which are
listed in the back of the manual.

One ofthe things that genuinely surprised me
about the Boca 2400 is its size. I have a Hayes
Smartmodem which is about 9 1/2 inches long.
The Boca 2400isabouthalfthatlength, although
it’s the same width and height as the Hayes. The
Boca 2400 comes with a phone cable, an AC
Power adapter, a small but informative and well
laid out manual, and a 5 year warranty. Also
included are two 3.5 inch disks for PC users, one

toconnect to America Online, and the other one

isaterminal program for PC users. Ifyou happen
to have a 1581 or an FD disk drive, these can be
formatted and used for your own purposes, A
couple of special offers also come with the Boca,
with information on joining GEnie and

CompuServe, both of which have Commodore

support areas, The special offers are something
thatseem tobe packaged with every new modem
regardless of modem brand, however, so I
wouldn't let this affect my decision in

a modem.

certain
buyin,

The advertising on the box and manual
proclaim, “High Quality, Affordable
Communications”, On this, | tend to agree.
Whether you're looking for a modem to begin
exploring the world of telecommunications, or
want tostep up from 300 or 1200 baud, the Boca
2400 is an excellent choice.

+ Les Songa

9)

COMMODORE WORLD

Graphic Interpretation

by Stoue Vander Ark

IMPORTING & EXPORTING GRAPHICS WITH GEOS

I spend a lot of time with GEOS. You might say
at I'ma GEOS addict. I certainly don’tleave the
S environment without an awfully good
on, and thanks to all the wonderful
applications and add-on utilities available for the
system, I don't usually have to. I have a word
processor that has as many features as any other
I might find, a paint program that can’t be beat,
and a fairly good term program (well, okay, so
that’s the weak link; but hey, it works!). Anyone
reading my columns the last few years is bound to
have noticed that I'm a graphics and desktop
publishing fan. And let's face it S is the way
to go when it comes to those kinds of projects.

Irealize, of course, that there are other types of
programs out there that people are using every
day, and there are plenty of decent Commodore
programs to create graphics. Programs like RUN
Paint and Koala Painter actually use a different
graphics mode to allow for very rich multi-color
graphics. For shear ease of use, the Print Shop
program, along with Print Shop clones like The
Flintstones Print Kit, offer quick and easy desktop
publishing as well. Computer bulletin boards
holdlots of graphicsin Print Shop mode, available
for the price of the download.

A lot of folks are also using computers like the
Amiga, the Macintosh, or the IBM-clone. There
are plenty of wonderful graphics programs for
those machines too, programs with immense
power. They use graphics in many forms, and
those graphics arealso available for downloading.

I still use GEOS, though—both on my
Commodore and on my IBM clone. One of the
reasons that GEOS can serve my needs so well is

COMMODORE WORLD

that, if | want to, I can tap into a lot of those
graphics out there that are intended for all those

that keeps GEOS going in this era of
machines and multimedia. This capability to
import so many other graphic formats didn’t
come built into GEOS, however. You have to pay
alittle extra here and there. Butit sureis worth it.
Over thenext two columns, I'll talkaboutsome of
these graphic modes and formats. Then I'll talk
about some of the conversion programs you'll
need to import those images into your GEOS
environment. Thisissue I'll cover graphics created
for and by other Commodore programs; next
issue I'll take a look at some of the other graphic
formats you're likely to encounter, and tell you
what you'll need to bring them into GEOS.
Tused to say that there were essentially three
graphics modes forthe Commodore, but with the
advent of BASIC 8 and I-Paint, that statement is

38

abitout of date. For starters, though, let's go back
to the basic three modes. The first is text mode,
which is the way your Commodore boots up.
What you see on the screen is essentially pre-
defined charactersin theshapeofletters, numbers
and symbols. Each shape comes out of the
computer's permanent memory and is therefore
drawn very quickly. It’s possible to divert the
computer’sattention toa set of shapes you define
yourself, but the basic dimensions of each shape
arealways the same. Things look pretty blocky in
this mode, but since it's most often used for text
or simple lines, that’s okay. Text mode is often
referred to as “low resolution” mode.

The second graphics mode, referred to as
“medium resolution” or “multi-color” mode,
offers a little bit more in the way of color. Its
screen resolution suffersa little, but thislimi
is offset by its more powerful color capabilities.
Some of the finest artwork ever done on a
Commodore computer were done in multi-color
mode. The KoalaPad graphics tablet used this
mode forts excellent paint program, KoalaPaint,
Multi-color images are commonly stored in
KoalaPaint format, sometimescompressed, Ifthe
filename begins with an inverted spade symbol,
the image is in Koala format; if it begins with
“GG" the image is in compressed Koala format.

The third graphics mode is called “high
resolution” andit allows the finest detail ofall but
at the cost of some limits on colors. Many
programs operate in high-res mode, including
GEOS, Print Shop, and Doodle. Doodle format is
something of a standard for high-res images. A
file with a name beginning with “DD” isa Doodle

Issue 4

file, while one with a filename beginning with “IJ” isin compressed Doodle
format. Print Shop, Print Master, and Newsroom each have their own
formats for storing high-resolution clip art images.

‘The graphics you might want to use in GEOS, then, have to be in a high-
resolution format to be used directly by geoPaint. Ifthey aren't already in
high-resolution format they'll have to be converted. Here's a list of the
programs that will do the work for you:

Graphics Grabber (on the Deskpack Plus disk from Creative Micro Designs)
This is the “official” graphics conversion program for GEOS. It will import
graphics in the formats used by Print Shop, Print Master, and Newsroom.
Theinterfaceisve ialog box
with a double click instead of having to select and then go find an “open”
button. Ifyou have Print Shop graphics t u would love to use, this is
the easiest way to import them into GEOS. Graphics Grabber works fine in
40- or 80-column modes, too.

touse;itevenallowsyoutoselect froma:

Import Runner by Joe Buckley (on the RUN Power Pack II disk distributed
by Creative Micro Designs) Import Runner will capture the following types
of Commodoreimages:standardbitmaps,
images, and standard and compressed Koala multi-color images. Since the
colorinformation in multi-colorimagesisincompatible with GEOS format,
Import Runner substitutes GEOS patterns for the colors to create a
monochrome version of the picture. Each conversion can be done into a
photo scrap or into a geoPaint file.

dardandcompressed Doodle

Graphic Storm by Joe Buckley (available as sharew 00) Graphic
Storm is similar to Import Runner, probably since it was written by the
same guy. It works pretty much the same, although it handles a somewhat

COLOR 64 BBS

THE COLOR 64 BBS SYSTEM, one of the most sophisticated BBS
systems for the Commodore 64 computer, has always been built to
be functional when first installed yet completely modifyable by the
SYSOP. Now we are proud to announce the release of version 8.0,
the latest form of the BBS system that is popular with both beginner
and advanced Sysops.

In its stock form Color 64 supports: 300 to 2400 BPS; up to 38,400
BPS with CMD's SwiftLink; Hayes compatible modems; Commo-
dore or compatible disk drives; CMD HD Series, Lt. Kernal and ICT
hard drives; IEEE drives; Commodore REU's up to 2 MB; CMD's
RAMLink and MORE. A minimum of 1300 blocks of disk space is
recommended as well as some form of disk drive speed enhance-
ment such as CMD's JiffyDOS, Skyles Flash Interface or fastloader.

Color 64 also features: upload and download directories; Punter and
Xmodem protocols; an advanced public message system; a full
featured message editor; built-in MCI commands for message
formatting; 40 and 80 column support; an automatic page pauser;
Commodore graphics and color; ANSI graphics and color; Built-in
terminal program with phone book; Built-in networking with net-
worked mail, public messages, and file transfers.

More information about Color 64 BBS can be obtained by contacting
the SYSOP of the Sonic Temple BBS at 410-285-0428. You can also
send GEnie mail to F.OGLE, Inet/Usenet mail to
F.OGLE@GENIE.GEIS.COM or U.S. Mail to Fred Ogle, P.O. Box
35427, Dundalk, MD 21222-7427. Send all orders via Mail,

Pricing for Color 64 Version 8.0, a four disk set with documentation:
the cost is $65.00. Postage/handling charges: US Mail 3rd Class add
$2.00 (Surface), US Mail 1st class(Air) add $3.00, Priority Mail (2nd
Day) add $4.00, Express Mail (Next Day) add $15.00. U.S. funds
only, checks or money orders accepted. Canadian orders add $5.00.
Prices and features are as of 3/13/94 and are subject to change.

different list of graphics formats. Along with standard bitmaps and
uncompressed Doodles, Graphic Storm will import Print Shop, Print
Master, and Newsroom graphics.

Handy Import by Joe Buckley (av
Handyscanner creates ima

able as shareware: $5.00) The
ges in high-res but saves them in its own format.
Thisimport program, also written by Joe Buckley, pulls the scanned images
intoGEOS. This program willalso convert graphics from the Video Digitizer
distributed by RIO Computers.

GetGraphic by Nicholas Vrtis (available as shareware:
lot of Print Shop graphics you'd like to import int

ake your day, GetGraphicwill convert entire dis!
in photoalbums, all automatically, You can even sp
a disk the program will take.

5.00) Ifyou have
OS, this program will
of graphics into scraps

fy which graphics on

Scrap It! by Michael Schell (shareware: donation to Cystic Fibrosis
Foundation, Maryland Chapter) This program converts between v
formats, including both multi-color and high-res types. Th
ge isa multi-color, Conversions
from Koala images into color geoPaint images are sometimes quite
spectacular; results really depend on how well the colors of the original
happen to match up to the requirements of a high-res image.

include color, even when the beginningima

The above programs let you, the GEOS user, take advantage of the large
collections of graphics available for the Commodore. There's no need to
limit yourself only to Commodore graphics, however. Next issue we'll
expand our horizons to cover the whole wide world of computer graphics!

R&K MiCROTRONICS

Division of GEP Diversified Services, Inc.

Authorized Commodore
Repair

Complete Service and Repairs on
Computers, Monitors and Printers

Authorized reseller for:
Creative Micro Designs, Inc
Supra Corp.
American S'ware and Hardware
Diehard Magazine
Microsphere
Great Valley Products

"Let our 17 years of experience serve you."

ALL 419-536-1455

R&K MicroTronics
34 Hillwyck, Toledo, OH 43615

Volume 1, Number 4

39 COMMODORE WORLD

geoProgrammist

By Maurice Randall

OH. NO. MACROS TOO? DEALING WITH GEOS PROGRAM MEMORY

The very thought of the word ‘macro’ scares
people. Most people tend to avoid any use of a
macro. But what exactly isa macro? Well, macros
can be different things on different computers or
different programs. A word processor, for
instance, might define a macro as being a single
press of a particular key that will perform the
same functions as if you pressed several keys,
therefore saving many keystrokes. This would
mean that instead of having to remember all
those different keystrokes, you only have to
remember one. Afterall, computersaresupposed
to save us time and trouble, right? We let the
computer rememberall oftheneeded keystrokes.
So, ina sense, a macro can be defined as anything
that appears as being simple and is simple to use,
but performs something more complex when
put to used, In our case, we are working with
geoAssembler and this isa type of program that
doesn’t need to accept any input from the user
through the keyboard. It receives all of it’s input
from text files that we create with geoWrite. In
simple terms, amacrofor geoAssemblerisaword
contained within your source code that, when
assembled, is converted into source code. This
son typing when you're creating your source
code, A macro name is also easier to remember
than the actual code generated by the macro,

A Closer Look

Supplied with geoProgrammer is a file that
containsa standard set of macrosalready defined
foryou. Youwillfind yourselfusing some ofthese
macros all of the time. Let's take a look at one of
the most commonly used macros known as
‘LoadW". This macro is designed to load a
two-byte (word) location in memory with an

COMMODORE WORLD

immediate value. Let's put the value $2000 into
the zero page location at $02. First, here's the
long way to do it:

Ida #$a8
sta $03
Ida #$00
sta $02

‘That small piece of code required me to type four
lines. Later on, while debugging the program, a
quick glance at this part of the code might not be
real evident what my intentions were. Am | just
putting some values into a couple of zero byte
locations, or am I setting up a register so that I
might be able to use some indirect addressing
such as ‘Ida ($02),y’? Let's try this with a macro.

LoadW $02,#$a800

Now, that’s better. One line of source code and I
know why I put those two values into $02 and

40

$03. Iwas setting up so that I might be able todo
something directly with the 40-column screen
memory which begins at $2000. That would help
me to figure out what the remaining code in my
routine was doing, Obviously the macro name
‘LoadW" is not used all by itself. It requires two
parameters. In the above example, my two
parameters were $02 and #$a000. The first
parameter is always a location in memory while
thesecond parameteris the value that youwish to
have placedin that location. Justasin theexample,
the two parameters are separated by a comma,
and the two parameters must follow the macro
name itself by at least one or more spaces or tabs.

The Standard Macros
LoadW is one of the standard macros that is
supplied in the geosMac file that comes with
geoProgrammer. There are a number of other
macrosin this file that you will use, whilesome of
them you may never have a use for. LoadB is a
macro that issimilarto LoadW, except thatit will
place a value into a one-byte location in memory.
Have you ever typed in the code to subtract a
value from a memory location? Instead, just use
the macro ‘SubVW’. SubVW stands for ‘Subtract
Value from Word’. Let's say that you have a
two-byte value contained in $02 and you wish to
subtract the decimal value 1000 from it, with the
result ending up in location $02. It's as simple as:

SubUW #1600,S02

Ofcourse, ifyou don'tlike the thought ofmacros,
you could always type in the following:

sec

Issue 4

Ida $82
sbe #232
sta $02
Ida $83
sbe #35
sta $03

I think I'd rather use the macro.

GeoAssembler will take care of writing out the actual code for you when
it is assembling your source code, Looks pretty simple doesn’t it? You can
even use constants that have been defined elsewhere in your code, The
constant ‘r0" is defined in the symbol file ‘geosSym’ and you should always
‘include’ this filein yoursource code, So, different parts of your source code
could have the following lines in it:

include geosSym
TABLESIZE =1600
SubUW #TABLESIZE,rO

Defining Your Macros

GeoAssembler needs to know how your macrosare defined. The definitions
are not built into the assembler. There are two ways to do this. The easiest
way is to just include the macro file at the start of your source code. The
other way would be to type in the macro definition at the start of your
source code, Thisis fine for a macro that might only be used in this one file,
If you wish to use the macros from the geosMac file, just type in the
following line at the start of your source code:

include geosMac

GeoAssembler will read in this file at the start of assembling you
code and will know what it needs to do when it encounters any macros that
you have used in your code. Load the geosMac file into geoWrite and study
some of the macro definitions. This is the easiest way to become familia
with how a macrois defined. You can also add your own macros to this file,
or delete the ones that you will never use. GeoAssembler only has a certain
amount of room for reading in macro definitions, so ifyouadd more macro
definitions you might exceed the amount of space reserved. Just take your
mouse and highlight a definition that you would not need and cut it from
the file, You will know if geoAssembler runs out of room for macro
definitions, it will report the error during the assembly. A macro definition
always starts with ‘macro’ and ends with ‘end’, Let's look at the macro
definition for the very popular ‘bra’ macro (this, by the way, stands for
BRanch Always) and see how a simple macro is defined:

source

«macro
bra address
clu
buc address

sendm

This particular macro requires one parameter, a local label. When
encountered, your code will always branch to that local label. In the
definition, after macro, comes the name of the macro. This is followed by
any parameters that the macro should use which are separated by commas
just as when you use the macro in your source code. Then, beginning with
the next line is the actual code that geoAssembler will substitute for your
macro. The definition ends with .endm, Macros do not make your final

Volume 1, Number 4

a“

program any smaller. In fact, in some cases, using macros could actually
make your program larger. For this reason, a macro definition should not
result in a large amount of code, Large macros that require parameters are
okay, buta large macro that doesn’t require a parameter and only results in
the generation of code should be avoided. A jsr to a subroutine would be
more logical in this ease, Macros can be quite complex as you can see from
some of the definitions in geosMac, But even the very simple ones can be
extremely helpful. Start out by using the macros that I talked about here
and when you feel comfortable, explore the many possibilities that you
might have with this very powerful feature of geoAssembler, *)

Popular Macros from the geosMac file...

LoadW this will store an immediate value into a two-byte addr
Example: LoadW 10,#Table This would store the value
defined by the symbol Table at the two-byte memory
location known as 1.

this will store an immediate value into a one-byte address,
Example: LoadB r11L,#100 This would store the value
109 into the location defined by r11L.

use this to move the contents of a two-byte address to
another two-byte address. Example: MoveW r@,r1 The
two consecutive bytes beginning at r@ will be copied into
the two consecutive bytes at rl.

LoadB

Movel)

MoveB use this to move a one-byte value from one address to
another. Example: MoveB r2H,bottomSave This would
move the value contained in r2H to a location called
bottomSave.

PushW push two consecutive bytes from memory onto the stack.
Example:PushW r@ This will push thetwo bytes beginning
at r@ onto the stack. The high byte (rO+1) is pushed first.
pull two consecutive bytes from the stack into memory.
Examp! will pull two bytes from the stack
and place them atr@ andr@+1. The first byte pulled will go
tord.

add a value to a two-byte location in memory. Example:
AddVW #32@,screenrow This would add the value 320 to
a two-byte location in memory that you have defined as
sereenrow. The result will be left in screenrow.

subtract a value from a two-byte location in memory,
Example: SubVW #32@,screenrow This would subtract
the value 32@ from a two-byte location in memory that you
have defined as screenrow, The result will be left in
screenrow.

branch always toa location in memory. Example: bra 10$.
‘This will branch to the local label defined as 10$,

branch on a bit in memory if reset to zero. Example: bbr
3,testFlags,4@$ This example would test bit 3 of the byte at
testFlags, and ifit is zero (cleared) will branch to the local
label 40S, Otherwise, the program will continue with the
code that follows the macro.

branch on a bit in memory if set. Example: bbs
1 testFlags,20$ This would test bit 1 ofthebyteattestFlags,
and if it is a one (set) will branch to the local label 20.
Otherwise the program will continue with the code that
follows the macro.

PopwW

Adduw

Subuw

bra

bbr

COMMODORE WORLD

STARSHIP COMBAT PART Ill:
THE ALLIANCE STRIKES BACK!

COMBAT ~ THE ALLIANCE LEARNS HOW 10 USE ITS WEAPONS
SCANNERS ~ TRACK SHIPS THROUGHOUT THE SECTOR GRID
CLOAKING ~ ALLIANCE SHIPS LURK IN THE SHADOWS

IMPORTANT: Please see the notes on entering this program located just

before the listing before you actually start typing the listing into your computer.

Newcomers

In BASIC Instincts, we are building a large game named Starship Combat
which spans across the last five issues for this year. This is the third
installment of the series. Starship Combat isa science fiction strategy game

written in Commodore BASIC v2 for the Commodore 64. In the process of

building Starship Combat, we are developing our BASIC programming
skills. Best ofall, we're having fun doing it!

Although this column was initially intended for beginning BASIC
programmers, we've moved quickly into a more intermediate level of
BASIC programming. Nonetheless, beginning and experienced BASIC
programmers are encouraged to follow along as well, and review Starship
Combat's advanced use of subroutines, strings, and arrays.

What? You don’t have the last two installments, Solution: Break open
that piggy bank, grab some quarters, and pick up issues two and thre
While you're at it, hold off on that pizza you were thinking about ordering
tonight and send in the dough for a subscription.

Notes

Starship Combat is a large BASIC program. As you type in Starship
Combat, take it one section at a time, Read the comments for the section
both in the article AND in the BASIC text. Try to get a general idea of what
the section is accomplishing. See if you can follow how the section is using
its variables (use the handy charts and variable definitions from issue two).
If you see an unfamiliar BASIC statement, take a quick look at it in your
BASIC manual. Ifyou are still confused, move on to the next section; often
times the next section helps explain the previous one. Above all, don’t
forget to BACKUP your work frequently!

About Installment Three

Inthisinstallment wewill focus on enabling the Alliance's weapon systems.
The challenge will be making the computer a worthy opponent for the
Union. To make it interesting, we will outfit the Alliance with a cloaking
device! Furthermore, we will limit the Union's ability to track Alliance
movements, After making these changes, Starship Combat will be a
functional strategy game. ‘The last two installments of Starship Combat
will focus on additional features and enhancing gameplay.

bonus, we'll make fun of Gene for using a poor method in a couple
of his FOR/NEXT loops in the last installments. We'll look at why it was a
poor method, then pull out our BASIC tool box and fix them.

Items

In the last installment we added an Item List to the Ship Type array (TY%)
fields (7), (8), (9), and (10). The Item List isa list ofitems found aboard that
particular ship type. Let’s takea look at the item definitions (please see the
Item Chart).

COMMODORE WORLD

42

ITEM CHART

Definition

Scans sector map for ships

Scans sector map and ID's enemy ships
Steals energy from opposing ships
Partially regenerates shield strength
Allows ship to travel undetected in sub-
space

Generates energy for the ship's energy
reserves

Used to detect cloaked ships

Item Name

0 Basic Scanner
1 Deep Scanner
2 Energy Stealer
3 Shield Kit

4 — Cloaking Device

a

Generator

6 — Sensor Array

7 Atomics Destroys everything in the sector (including
you)

999 No Item Used for initialization purposes

The Basic and Deep Scanners are the only items operational for the Union

at this time; where the Alliance has operational Energy Stealers and
Cloaking Devices. We will deal with the rest of the items later as the series
continues in the next two issues.

ices

Scanners

As of this installment, Starship Combat does not inform you of Alliance
moves unless (a) the Alliance ship is not cloaked and (b) a Union ship is
present in the sector. So to find out more about the enemy you must use a
scanner. At the moment, the scanners are accessed through the “(u)use
item” command.

Both the Basicand Deep Scanners allow viewing of the entire sector grid.
The Deep Scanner provides uncloaked enemy ship ID's as well as their
location; where the Basic Scanner only providesthe location. Additionally,
if the current ship has a Deep Scanner you can view any ship which is not
cloaked in the game.

The routine which implements these two “scans” is surprisingly small. It
just walks through the Active Ship List array SL% and pokes the uncloaked
ships to the map area. But how do we know ifa ship is cloaked? Read on...

Cloaked Ships

In order to add the cloaking ability, we must find a way to mark that a
particular shipis cloaked. You guessed it. We need to add a new field to the
Active Ship List array SL%.

SL(SH,10) = 0 - ship is not cloaked
SL(SH,10) = 1 - ship is cloaked

Since more than one ship can cloak at a time, each ship must have its own
cloak flag. The Active Ship List array is the perfect way to implement this.
As you code in this change, notice how simple it really is. We just change
the size of the array in the DIM statement and we're done (we change the
nine toa ten).

Issue 4

Making The Computer Think

Now weneed toteach the Computer how to fight,
Tall order? Maybe. But before we even think
abouttouching the keyboard, WE MUST DEFINE
HOW WE WANT THECOMPUTER TOACT. By
defining what we want to do on paperin detail we
cananticipate problems, identify better methods
ofattacking those problems, and SAVEA GREAT
DEAL OF TIME. There's nothing worse than
discovering that you must trash the last couple
hours of work because you didn’t foresee some
problem. Enough lecturing, let's define how we
want the computer to use each of the Alliance
ship types. Please take a look at each ship's
algorithm in the ALGORITHM CHARTS.

ALGORITHM CHARTS

AL HUNTER ALGORITHM

IF no UN Ships in the sector THEN
IF ship is badly damaged THEN effect
repairs
ELSE seek enemy sector

ELSE (UN Ships in the sector)
IF ship is badly damaged THEN run away
ELSE
IF power<100 THEN steal energy
ELSE IF torpedo ready THEN launch
torpedo
ELSE IF phasers ready THEN fire phasers
ELSE steal energy
END_IF

END_IF

AL DESTROYER/FRIGATE ALGORITHM
IF no UN Ships in the sector THEN
IF ship is badly damaged THEN effect
repairs
ELSEIF cloaked THEN seek enemy sectors
ELSE cloak
ELSE (UN Ships in the sector)
IF ship is badly damaged THEN
IF cloaked THEN run away
ELSE cloak
ELSE
IF not cloaked
IF range<9 AND torpedo ready THEN
launch torpedo
ELSE IF phasers ready THEN fire phasers
ELSE cloak
ELSE (cloaked)
IF mp's>2 THEN uncloak
ELSE IF range>1 THEN close in
ELSE wait
END_IF
END_IF
END_IF

Volume 1, Number 4

AL LIGHT CRUISER ALGORITHM

IF no torpedoes left THEN use AL
DESTROYER routine
ELSE (torpedoes on board)
IF no UN Ships in the sector THEN
IF ship is badly damaged THEN effect
repairs
ELSE IF cloaked THEN close in
ELSE cloak
ELSE (UN Ships in the sector)
IF ship is badly damaged THEN
IF cloaked THEN run away
ELSE cloak
ELSE
IF not cloaked
IF range<7 AND torpedo ready THEN
launch torpedo
ELSE cloak
ELSE (cloaked)
IF range>4 THEN close in
ELSE IF mp's>4 THEN uncloak
ELSE IF range>1 THEN close in
ELSE wait
END_IF
END_IF
END_IF
END_IF

AL HEAVY CRUISER ALGORITHM
IF no UN Ships in the sector THEN seek
enemy sector
ELSE (UN Ships in the sector)
IF torpedoes on board THEN
IF range<5 AND torpedo ready THEN
launch torpedo
ELSE IF phasers ready THEN fire phasers
ELSE IF range>1 THEN close in
ELSE wait
ELSE (no torpedoes left)
IF phasers ready THEN fire phasers
ELSE wait
END_IF
END_IF

AL DESTROYER/FRIGATE (Modified
Version)
IF F1=0 THEN
IF F3 THEN effect repairs
IF F2 THEN seek enemy sector
cloak
ELSE
IF F3 THEN run away
IF F2=0 THEN
IF range<9 THEN GOSUB launch torpedo
GOSUB fire phasers
cloak
ELSE
IF mp's>2 THEN uncloak

43

GOSUB close in

wait

END_IF
END_IF

Wow! That’sabunchofcode, Howcanwesqueeze
those If/THEN statements down to a more
reasonable size? Ah, now the magic begins, First
we notice that many of the IF/THEN checks are
the same in each algorithm; only their locations
are different, For example each algorithm must
check whether there are Union ships present in
the sector or not, Since each algorithm needs to
know this information we can calculate it before
we jump into the algorithm. In our routines we
calculate a number of these variables:

FLAGS
F1 Are there Union ships in the current sector?
0-NO
1-YES
F2_ Isthe current ship cloaked?
F3__ Is the ship badly damaged?

VARIABLES

‘TG. Targeted ship in the Active Ship List (likeSH
except used for the target)

RA_ Range to the targeted ship

The algorithms share several options: effect
repairs, seek enemy sector, run away, cloak ship,
uncloak ship, close in, fire phasers, and launch
torpedo. To avoid repeating code

id to save

wearand tear on our fingers), we'llcreatecommon.
routines to take care ofall these options, then just
GOTO those routines when we need them.

But wait—there's a catch. Three of those
options (close in, fire phasers, and launch
torpedo) depend on variables which we have not
calculated yet, What happens if we GOTO these
routines like the others and they fail? Say there
are no torpedoes left. What should the launch
torpedo routine do? Here’s an idea: what ifwe set
up the routine for a GOSUB statement so that
when the routine fails it just RETURN’s to the
caller, and when it succeeds it takes over control
and continues? Then all we would h
set up our algorithm so that the statement after
the GOSUB takes care of any failures. Sounds
good, but one problem remains: how do we make
the computer “forget” that we GOSUB'dinto the
routine? You'll notice that we included a small
machine language routine in the listing to do this
for us, and this routine is called a “Pop”. By the

way, this Pop can be used by any BASIC v2
program.

Let’s take a look at how all of this pre-planning.
will help (please see AL DESTROYER/FRIGATE

COMMODORE WORLD

~ Modified Version in the ALGORITHM CHART). Notice how the routine
is smaller and less complex. Now check the modified versions of the
algorithms in the BASIC listing (Lines 25100 to 25499). These complex
algorithms have been reduced to just a few lines of code each.

ROUTINES

Line Routine Name

20800 Wait

26000 Runaway

26100 — Effect repairs

26300 — Launch torpedo if possible (Pop)
26400 Fire phasers if possible (Pop)
26500 — Steal energy

26600 — Cloak ship

26800 Uncloak ship

26900 — Close in (Pop)

27000 Seek enemy sector

Gene's Mistake
ke a look at line numbers 21155 and 21160 from last issue's program
listing:

21155 for: ,9)=xtthen21165

160

‘The problem hereis subtle, This loop cycles through the shipsin the Active
Ship List until it finds the ship xt. Ifthe loop finishes, then it did not find
the ship xt and it goes to line 21135. However, Ifthe loop finds the ship xt
itexits the loop and goes to line 21165. Here lies the problem. BASIC never
finishes the FOR NEXT loop; so BASIC continues to look for a NEXT
statement after we're long gone. If this happens too many times, we will
eventually get an 2OUT OF MEMORY ERROR and our program will crash,
Thebest solution isto always endaFOR/NEXT loop witha NEXT statement.
Let's look at this issues solution:

L:ifs1%(xi,9)=xtthenxl=xi:

199 the!

‘These three lines accomplish the same thing. In line 21155, once we find
the ship xt, we store the ship's index in x1 and set xiton
loop. ‘The difference here is that we make sure we
FOR/NEXT loop with a NEXT statement.

which ends the
il always end the

MAIN PROGRAM (New/changed sections since the last issue)
Lines 100-199 (setup main game loop)

~ Comments now say “starship combat part iii”

Lines 200-299 (main loop for the game)

~ moved NU calculation to the game initialization routine

SUBROUTINES (New/changed sections since the last issue)

Lines 10400-10699 (game initialization routines)

~ Lines 19400-10499 reduced initial number of torpedoes for several
ships

~ Lines 1800-13902 added cloak field to the Active Ship List array SL%

- Lines 19907-10915 relocated NU calculation from Lines 200-299

~ Lines 1920-10949 cloaks all Alliance ships equipped to do so

~ Lines 19975-10999 implements machine language Pop for GOSUB's

COMMODORE WORLD

44

Lines 110@@-11999 (initialize all ships for next round)
- now restores ten percent of shield strength
Lines 114@Q-11699 (update status and map area for current ship)
- Lines 1400-1499 checks if stats must be displayed (by using UP)
UP @-no update at all
1- complete update stats and map
2-update map area only
~ Lines 1500-1599 checks ifmap must be displayed andifso displaysonly
uncloaked ships
Lines 118@@-11999 (kill ship)
- updated so that it copies the new cloak field in the Active Ship List (field
ten)
~ updates NU if nece

(process Union ship turn)

~ Lines 20000-20074 sets new UP variable for calls to update routine

~ Lines 20075-20199 uses better method for the FOR NEXT loop and
enables sector scanners through the use option

- Lines 20255-20299 updates stats and clears option area

(90-2079 updated so you can only view enemy ships in the

ctor unless you havea Deep Scanner; and you can’t view cloaked
enemy ships

- Lines 21100-21199 uses better method for the FOR NEXT loop and
does not allow targeting of cloaked enemy ships

nes 22000-22099 displays sector map depending on the type of

seanner aboard

40-2999 (process Alliance ship turn)

25099 calculate riablesforthealgorithms

+ Lines 2510-25199 process turn for a Hunter (Hunter algorithm)

+ Lines 25200-25299 process turn for a Destroyer/Frigate (Destroyer/
Frigate algorithm)

Nes 2530-25399 process turn for a L-Cruiser (L-Crui

25499 process turn for a H-Cruiser (H-Cruiser

ay routine

~ Lines 2610-26199 effect repairs routine (not implemented)

- Lines M 9 launch torpedo subroutine (Pop routine)

Lines 26400-26499 fire phasers subroutine (Pop routine)

Lines 26500-26599 steal energy routine

Lines 26600-26699 cloak ship routine

~ Lines 26700-26799 two second delay subroutine

- Lines 26800-26899 uncloak ship routine

- Lines 26990-26999 close in subroutine (Pop routine)

OOO-27099 seek enemy sector routine

+ Lines 27100-27199 find best union ship routine (used for calculating
TG and RA)

- Lines 2

same si

Entering the Program

Before entering this month’s installment, load and run the CH
utility (located elsewhere in this issue). Once you have CHK-LIST loaded
and ready, load your saved copy of Starship Combat from last issue. The
listing in this issue only gives lines which have been added or altered.
Finally, before you begin to add the new lines from this issue, therearea few
lines which must be deleted from your previous version, You may remoe
these lines by typing the line numbers, one by one, folowing easch with a
press of the <RETURN> key. Here are the lines to delete:

LIST

20725 25075 2508025155 25160 25165 25170 251
25285 25190 25195 25365 25370

STARSHIP COMBAT

STARSHIP COMBAT (cou!!,)

115 rem starship combat part iii

10445 data "UN Scout",3,500,50,65,0,0,4,
@,5,999,999
10450 data
7,0,2,6,999
10455 data "UN
1,6,0,3,4,5
10460 data "UN
1,10,1,3,5,6
10465 data "UN
2,8,1,3,5,6
10475 data "AL
14,0,4,999,999
10480 data "AL Frigate",5,800,90,150,5,4
+7,1,4,7,999
10485 data "AL
5,6,1,3,4,5
10490 data "AL
+6,8,1,3,5,999
10815 di %(24,10)
10848 1%(sk,10)=
10907 rem-

10909 rem setup initial # of
19911 rem-

10913 nu=0: forxi=@tons-1l:ifsl%(xi,@)<utt

hennu=nu+1

10915 next

10920 rem-

10922 rem cloak alliance ships

10924 rem-

10926 forxi=nutons-1

10928 xt= orxj=7told@:ifty$(s1%(xi,@)
.xj)=4thenxt=1

10930 : next

10932 s1%(xi,10) =:
10934 next

10975 rem-

10977 rem setup pop for
10979 rem-

10980 forxi=830to852:readxt :pokexi, xt:ne
xt

10982 datal@4,104,169,255,133,74,32,138,
163,201,141

10984 data240,3,76, 224,168,232, 232,232,2
32,232,154,96

10999 return

11030 : y%(s1%(xi,@),2)

11035 x nt(.10*xt)+s1%(xi,6)

11040 : ifxl>xtthenxl=xt

11045 : s1%(xi,6)=x1

1105@ next

11055 return

11432 ifup=@thenreturn

11523 ifs1%(xi,10)=@thenpoke1024+5*40+12
+31% (xi, 3) *d4O+51% (x ), 818 (xi, 9) +193
11525 next

11530 ifup=lthenxt=1024+5*40+12+s1%(sh,3
)*40+s51%(sh,2) :pokext, peek (xt)-128
11535 return

11860 ifxk<nuthennu=nu-1

11862 ns=ns-1:ifns=lthenzeturn

11865 ifxk=nsthenreturn
11875 : forxj=@tol@:s1%(xi-1,
xj) snext

20030 up=1:gosub114@@:up=2
20100 pw: %(sh,5):xt=999
20105 forxi=ltoop:ifxx$=op$ (xi-1)thenxt=
xi:xi=op

20107 next :ifxt=999then20090

2011@ onxtgoto20200, 20300, 20400, 20500, 22
000, 20090, 20800, 20600, 20900, 21400

"UN L-Dest",4,750,80,100,1,0,

Destroy", 4,850,100,140,1,
Cruiser", 6, 1000, 200, 300,2
Battle",5,1250,225,500,3,

Destroy",4,725,75,100,4,4
LCruise", 7,900, 150, 250,6,

HCruise",6,1100, 200, 400,6

k+1:gotoloa35

un ships

gosubs

xj) =s1¥ (xi,

Volume 1, Number 4

@ gosub: ake haere return

20720 forxis@tons-1 Tif618 (xi, 9) =xtthenx!
=xi:xi= 1

20721

999then20075
120730

20724 if ty%(sl1%(sh,0),7)=1then20728
20726

ifsl%(x1, 1)<>s1%(sh,1)then20075
1%(x1,10)=1then20075
sup=1:gosub11400
(xx$)-ase("a"
l:ifsl

=xtthenx

99then21135
(tg, 1)then21135
then21135

60 next
21165 tg=x1:
21170 ifsl%(tg,10)=
22000 rem-
22005 rem di
22010 rem-
22015 gosubl11300

22020 xt=tyt(sl$(sh,@),7)
25 ifxtthenprint “Deep

play sector map

Scanner" :goto22

035
22030 print *Scanner*
22035 printoa$"{2 CRSR DN} (press a key)"
22040 print" (HOME}{5 CRSR DN} (WHT) "
"{12 CRSR RT){RVS ON}---------
b10200

tons-1
xX=51% (Xi, 1) :xy=0
Othenxx=xx-10:xy=xy+40:goto

1024+5*40+12+xx+xy:xz=peek (x1

)
22060 :
enx: 1%(xi,9)+19

ifxi<nuor (xt=lands1%(xi,10)=) th

joto22070

22065 £518 (xi, 10) =O@thenxz=170
22070 : pokexl,xz
22075 next

O:xy=xy+4@:goto22

=10244+5*40+12+xx+xy
22092 pokexz,peek(xz)-128
22094 getxx$: i fxx: “then2
22096 return
25020 rem set common var's & flags
<z=81%(sh,1) :xx=s18(sh,2):xy=s13(s

2094

1% (sh, 4) :pw=s1%(sh,5)
£2=s1%(sh, 10)

25035 mp=

25047 next:ifxithen25060

25050 f1=1:gosub27100
=@thenup=1:gosubl 1400: up=2
thenpw=pw-1:ifpw<=Othenpw=1
25065 £3=0:if (s18(sh,6)+s1%(sh,7))<(.
ty$(s1%(sh,0),3))then£3=1

70 on(si8(sh,0)-4)goto25100, 25200, 252
10, 25300, 25400

25105 rem hunter logic

5115 iffithen25130

Oo iff3then26100

23%

5130 iff3then26000

35 ifpw<100then26500.

© ifra<7thengosub26300
45 gosub26400

25150 goto26500

25200 rem-

COMMODORE WORLD

45

STARSHIP COMBAT (cont.)

2284

c7c6

a674

e348

5a63

da1is

a6c6
7c9e
adcl
7a81
be5o
35a9

5497

e749
aad
b42a
807c
e669
5fde
2384
3799
6baf
£76a
dl42
5045
9e6a
4b41
eb51
e3c7
c9eb
Odaa
dalb
£39b
£328
c3Of
9b21
42aa
bbeb
42aa
fc81

c509
803e
fed9
64a9
6afl
e8st
b623
abog
dc4d
67db

£3d8

1d5b
57a7
d990
8627
e6c7
387d
e6c7
72e5
bf6b
Thde
caso
3939

ad4a
£77d
ab4d
ea67

25235
25240

25325

26005
26010
26015
i) =4thenxt=1

26017
26018

26020 :

26025
26030
26035
26040
26045
26050

26960

rem destoryer/frigate logic

rem-

iff€1then25235

iff3then26100
2then27000

goto26600

iff3then26000

iff2then25260

ifra<9thengosub26300

gosub26400

goto26600

ifmp>2then26800

gosub26900

goto2@8ao

rem l-cruiser logic

ifs1%(sh,8)=Othen25200

iff1=Othen25220

if f3then26000

f2then25345

fra<7thengosub26300

goto26600

ifra>4thengosub26900

ifmp>4then26800

gosub26900

goto20800

rem-

rem h-cruiser logic

rem-

iffl=Orhen27000

ifsl%(sh,8)=@then25445

: ifra<5thengosub26300
gosub26400

+ gosub26900

+ goto208Od

gosub26400

goto20800

rem-

rem run from enemy in same sect

rem-

xt=@: forxi=7tol@:iftyt(sl%(sh,0),x

next

ifxt=Othen26030

iffathen26045

2 goto26600
gosub11300:printty$(s1%(sh,0))
printoa$"{CRSR DN}runs!*
gosub26700
xl=xy:if (xz-10) <@thenx1=999

f (x2+1) >99thenx2=999
fright$(str$(xz),1)="O"then

x4=9-xx:ifright$(str$(xz),1)="9"th

enx4=999

26065
26070
26075
26080
26100
26105
26110
6115
6300
26305
26310
26315
26320
26325
26330
26335

thendm=1

ifxl<x2andx1<x3andxl<x4then20200
i fx2<x3andx2<x4then20500
ifx3<x4then20300

goto20400

rem-

rem effect repairs

rem-

goto2@800:rem wait for now

rem-

rem fire torpedo if possible
rem

ifs1%(sh,8)-@thenreturn
xt=ty$(s1%(sh,),5)

rp=tp%(xt,@) :rm=tp%(xt,1
tl=sl%(sh,8)-1

dm=tp% (xt, 3)-(ra*tp$(xt,2)):ifdm<@

COMMODORE WORLD

STARSHIP COMBAT (conl.)

26340
26345

26350
26355

26360
26365

26370
26375
26400
26405
26410
26415
26420
26425
26430
26435
26440
26445
26450
26455
26460
26500
26505
26510
26515
26520
26525
26530
26535
26540

ifrp>pwthenreturn
ifrm>mpthenreturn
gosub11300
printty$(sl%(sh,@))
printoa$"{CRSR DN} launch

printoa$"{2 CRSR DN}torpedo!"
gosub26700

sys830:goto21200

rem-

rem fire phaser if possible
rem-

y%(sl%(sh,@),4)

rp=pht (xt,@) :rm=ph% (xt, 1)

dm=ph$ (xt, 2) :tl=s1%(sh,8)

i frp>pwthenreturn
ifrm>mpthenreturn

gosub11300

printty$(sl%(sh,@))

printoa$"(CRSR DN}fires his"
printoa$"{2 CRSR DN}disruptors."
goto26370

rem-

rem steal energy from target

rem-

gosub11300

printty$(sl%(sh,@) )

printoa$"{CRSR DN}creates an"
printoa$"{2 CRSR DN}energy field."
gosub26700
xt=sl%(tg,5)

25:ifxt<=Othenxk=sh:g

osub11800:goto26550

26545
26550

26555
26600
26605
26610
26615
26620
26625
26630
26635
26700
26705
26710
26715
26800
26805
26810
26815

26820 i

26825
26830
26835
26840
26900
26905
26910
26915
26920
26925
26930
26935
26940
26945

26950 i

26955

26960 :

26965
26970

slt%(tg, t
xt=pw+iO:ifxtsty’(s1%(sh,@),1) then

y%(s1%(sh,0),1)

pw=xt :goto2@8Oo
rer
2
rem-

iffl-@then26635
gosub11300:printty$(s1%(sh,0)
printoa$"{CRSR DN}cloaks!"
gosub26700
s1%(sh, 10) =1:goto20800

rem-

rem 2 sec delay

rem-

forxi=0to2000:next: return

rem-

rem uncloak ship

cloak ship

gosub11300:printty$(s1%(sh,@))
printoa$"(CRSR DN}uncloaks!"
up=1:gosub114@0:up=2

goto20800

rem-

rem close in on tg if possible
rem-

ifra<2thenreturn

iff2then26940
gosub113@0:printty$(s1%(sh,@))
printoa$"{CRSR DN}closes."
gosub26700

sys830

=xx-S1%(tg,2) :zy=xy-s1%(tg,3)
zy) then26965

2500
goto20200
ifzx<@then20400
goto20300

Issue 4

rem-

2e66 | 270
85cd
492f

daae
3d3a

27030
dd3c §

35

21b9 | 27040 >
37

d530

9£85
5023
b891
Beba

STARSHIP COMBAT (cont.)
£Of£6 7000

best union ship in sector

IMPORTANT NOTE

Don't forget to SAVE this version of Starship
Combat to disk with a new name!

—___]

oe THERE'S THE
FINAL FIGURE.
SHE TOTALS IT...
YES! IT BALANCES !

Volume 1, Number 4

HOOOOLY
TOLEEEDO!!

47

CKit 94!

It's Cool

Ckit 94 is a powerful collection of backup utilities designed to take
advantage of the expanded Commodore systems of the 90's. In fact
the Ckit is so advanced, we recommend it only for certain
Commodore systems.

if You Have One Of These
Commodore 64, 64C, 128, or 128D
And One Of These
CMD RAMLink, PPI RAMDrive, or a 17XX REU with JiffyDOS

Least One Of These
Commodore 1541/1571/1581 or any CMD Storage Device
# YOU NEED THE CKIT 94! ¢

It's Mean
CKit 94 can view, select, and copy over 1,000 files! It can also copy
entire 41/71/81 disks in ONE pass. It can even make the next copy
directly from RAM, With the CKit you can squeeze over 700 files into
an archive. Even more, you can squeeze your 41/71/81 disks and
CMD partitions into backup files, All of this power is at your
command through an easy to use menu driven interface.

File Uti
Filemaster file copier and the Archiver file squeezer

Disk Utilities
Procopy disk copier and the 41/71/81/Native Boa disk squeezers

BBS Utilities
New Dissolver SDA maker and fast PD Decompers

It's Better
Ckit 94 has 2 X faster and tighter compression than in previous
versions. All of the utilities have been enhanced for power and speed.
Plus, it has three new powerful utilities. And it takes full advantage of
Commodore 128's and REU's. Wow!

Check Out The Support
¥ Commodore 1541/1571/1581 Dri
¥ CMD Hard Drives/Floppy Drives/RAMLinks
J PPLRAMDrives

¥ Commodore 128 VDC RAM Support (16K and 64K)

¥ Commodore 128 2MHz Enhanced Mode Support

¥ Commodore 17XX REU Support (up to 16Meg)

J RAMLink and RAMDrive DACC Support (up to 16Meg)

Get Your Copy Now!
CKit 94 is available at fine Commodore mail order outlets such as
Creative Micro Designs. You may also order directly from us,

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(307) 632-1178 Information

Enelore Cheek or Money Order for:
CKit 94 $39.95 (Update $9.95) plor

Shipping $5 US and Canads ($10 Foreige)
Update exes Key from earlier version

COMMODORE WORLD

Do you want to auto-boot your Commodore 64 machine language (ML)
programs like the pros? In this edition of Advanced Techniques we'll show
give youa small BASIC program to do all of the

you how. Even more, we'
work for you! Let's go.

LOAD"@:*",8,1

You've seen this command before; it almost seems magical with some
s. Thisone-linecommand loadsand executesall sortsofcommercial
programs. The question is, “How does it work?” The “@:*” string tells the
drive that we want the first file in the directory. Let's assume that the first
file is named BOOT. BOOT is a small ML program who's job is to load and
execute another ML program. The “,8” tells BASIC to load BOOT from
drive number eight (8), and the ",1” tells BASIC to place BOOT at its
original memory location.

Okay, once we load the BOOT file, how does BASIC know to RUN it? This
is isthe key to auto-booting a program on the Commodore 64, The BOOT file
egically placed in memory in such a way that it redirects where
BASIC should go after it executes the LOAD command. Here is how BOOT
s in memory:

BOOT Memory Map ($92A7-$9363)

$02A7 MLBOOT Program. Just does a simple load of the main ML
program and JMP's to it.

Free bytes (for extra BOOT instructions).

Length of ML program filename.

Filename of ML program to be loaded and executed.
BASIC Error message vector (should always be $E38B).
BASIC Main program loop vector. Set to our BOOT program
at $02A7, then reset at the conclusion of BOOT to $A483,

$02CC
$02ED
$O2EE
$0300
$0302

After BASIC finishes loading BOOT, it jumps through BASIC’s main

AUTOBOOT 64

NOTE: Seeour CHK-LIST utility (located elsewhere in this issue) for information
on entering programs and using the checksum values in the left column,

AUTOBOOT 64

5000
6DC2
3014
F87D
@E6B
1a27
92AD
1315
SE64
C243
9DB3
53A2
E7B9

100 REM - ------ lamas

11
120
i25

RINT"COMMODORE WORLD AUTOBOOT 64"
NT"{CRSR DN}ENTER NAME OF ML FILE

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) IS CORREC

215 PRINT"{CRSR DN}CREATE BOOT FILE: {RVS
ON} "BES

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543
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311E
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605
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DDRESS FROM

program loop vector located at $9302-80303, Our BOOT pro; pre Si iumaneel Revenant)
this vector set toitselfat $0247, BOOT then loads the ML program, resets | 28D | 34¢ GRBAC UERAC ENE A)
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‘The BASIC program Autoboot 64 willereatethisBOOTprogramforyou. | 23C7 5
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and a filename for the BOOT file itself, Autoboot 64 will do the rest. Be | 4898 READ X
aware that Autobot 64 requires that the ML program it's supposedtoboot | 8475 : PaCHRS (2)
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Thisauto-hootingmethodis wellknown, andyouarefreetouseAutoboot | A168 | 505 { CUSTOMIZE BOOT FILE FOR THE
64 Lo create auto-boots for your own programs (commercial included). C745 | 510 ML FILE
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Volume 1, Number 4 49 COMMODORE WORLD

Peripheral Vision

By Mark Fellows

EO

SCSI MAGIC: THE SEARCH FOR ERRORS

Inthe lastissueofCommodore World, weshowed
you how to implement the CMD HD's “Send
SCSI" command to read and write specific logical
blocks on the CMD HD. We also mentioned
presenting a sample program in thisinstallment,
but we've gota little too much ground to cover on
how to identify and handle SCSI errors (should
they occur), so that sample program will have to
wait until next time,

Error Checking - Why Bother?

I know you're probably anxious to get on with
things and put together a working program, But
remember, error checking and handling is a
of every well-designed program—and it's much
easier to design your program with error checking
in mind than to tack it on as an afterthought.
Besides, ian error does happen to oceur, you're

going to want to know about it immediately, not

two weeks later when you try to restore from the

incomplete copy that your program created
cause it ignored a Seek Error,

A single subroutine can check for and report
any errors that may occur. Because the errors
reported by SCSI devicesaredetailed and specific,
you will find that they can help y mine
whether your drive mechanism has a mechanical
problem,
media, or if (heaven forbid) your program is
sending invalid commands, addresses or
parameters to the HD,

uu dete

Fthere’s a bad spot on the recording

How, When, and What to Check

Always check for an error after each SCSI
command, The HD makes this easy—simply read
a single status byte from the error channel after
sending the “S-C” command. You can easily add
a GOSUB that calls your error checking routine:

COMMODORE WORLD

$(@)CHRS
37) CHRS (@
) CHRS (0) CHRS$ (0) CHRS$ (@) CHR
$ (@) CHRS (1)

B20000

The error routine at line 20000 would first read
the status byte, convert it to a number and place
it in the variable E, as shown below:

T#15,£ E=ASC (ES

CHRS (@) )

At this point, you can look at the value of E and
determine whether or not an error has occurred.
Unless your program or the HD has gone totally
haywire, you will see one of six possible values:

BO
2

OK. The command was successful.

Check condition. An error occurred. You
must request further status from the drive
to determine the exact nature of the error.
Target busy. The SCSI device is busy. You
will not normally see this error because the

8

50

HD will not accept another “S-C” command
until the previous one has completed.
16 Intermediate status OK. Returned after the
successful completion of each command in
a series of linked commands; a rarely-used
feature of SCSI devices which is beyond the
scope of this article,
Reservation conflict. Returned if you try to
access a logical unit (LUN) reserved to
another SCSI device. Should never occur on
the HD.
DOS Syntax Error. The syntax of the “S-C"
command is incorrect,

24

Asking for Trouble

You will normally see only three of the errors: 00
(everything is OK), 48 (go back and work on your
program), and 02 (you need to find out what
went wrong during the last command). To handle
the latter, we must issue the Request Sense
command, This allows us to read a sequence of
Sense Bytesthat give usspecificinformation about
the exact nature of the error. The Command
Descriptor Block (CDB) for the Request Sense
command is:

Request Sense Command

Bit
py) 7/6] 5] 4/3]; 2) 1] 0
oO Operation Code

1 LUN Reserved

2 Reserved

3 Reserved

4 Allocation Length

5 Control Byte

Issue 4

Sincewe've covered CDB'sthoroughly in previous
installments, we'll get right to work building our
command. First weneed tospecify theSCSI device
number (usually 0) and the address of a buffer
within the HD to hold the error information
(called sense data). We'll use the same buffer
address as we did in the last issue: $3000. This
means that we can now build the first part of the
‘S-C’ command:

PRINT#15, "S-C”CHRS (@) CHR:
(®) CHRS$ (48)

Of course, we still need to tack on the Request
Sense CDB: Byte 0, the opcode for Request Sense,
is 02; Byte 1, LUN and reserved bit:
2 & 3 are reserved and are 01 )
control byte, is also 00. We've saved Byte 4, the
allocation length, for last because it needs special
mention. Ifthe allocation length is set to. 00, then
the SCSI device will return error information in
the form of Nonextended sense data. If the
allocation length is non-zero, then the device
returns Extended sense data.

Nonextended sense is a holdover from the
earliest SCSI specification, and provides only a
limited amount of error information. For this
reason, youshouldalwaysrequest extended sense
data. Extended sense returns up to 27 bytes of
error information. In order to keep things simple
and to make sure all pertinent information is
returned, always set the allocation length (Byte
4) to 27.

Okay, now that we know what values belongin
the CDB, we're ready to finish our command:

PRINT#15, "S-C”CHRS$ (®) CHRS
(@) CHRS (48) CHRS (2) CHRS (@)
CHRS (@) CHR$ () CHRS$ (27) CHR
$(@) :GOSUB29000

As with any other command, follow it with the
GOSUBtoyourstatuscheckingroutine. Although
not much can go wrong with the Request Sense
command, you will know right away if you've
somehow madea mistakein the command syntax.

Getting the Bad News

After we've sent the Request Sense command,
our buffer at $3000 in the HD will contain all the
infornmation weneed to knowabout the cause of
the last error. The first thing to do is to send a
Memory-Read command to the HD and then
pull all 27 bytes into an array. The syntax for the
Memory-Read command is:

PRINT#1£,”"M-R”, CHRS$(b1)CH
R$ (bh) CHR$ (nb)

Volume 1, Number 4

Set /fio 15, because that’s our command channel.
Bland bharethelowandhigh bytesofthe memory
addressin the HD where the sense datais located.
In our example, we are using address $3000,
which gives usa low address byte of $00 (decimal
0) and a high address byte of $30 (decimal 48).
Nb specifies the number of bytes that we want,
which in this case is 27. Therefore, our Memory-
Read command is:

Once we've sent the command, we need to fillour
array. The 27 bytes are retrieved one-at-a-time
over the command channel by using the GET
command within a FOR...NEXT loop which fills

the integer array SB%:

6:GET#15, BS
$(O)) :SB%(I)=B:

Before we begin interpreting the sense data, lets
take alookat the format of the 27 bytes we've just
received.

Extended Sense Data

Bit

sy} 7/6} 5] 4) 3] 2/1] 0
0 |AV| Error Class | Error Code
1 Reserved
2 Reserved Sense Key
3 Logical Block Address (MSB)
4 Logical Block Address
5 Logical Block Address
6 Logical Block Address (LSB)
rg lt Additional Sense Length

AV (Address Valid): When this bit is set (equal to
one), itindicates that Bytes 3-6 specify the logical
block address associated with the error.

Error Class/Error Code: For extended sense, the
error class is always 7 (bits 4,5 & 6 set), while the
error code is always 0 (bits 0,1,2 & 3 clear).
Sense key: Contains a number from 0-15 which
canbeusedasakey forthe grouping oferrors. See
the list of sense keys at the end of this article.
Logical Block Address (LBA): When the AV bit is
set, Bytes 3-6 indicate the logical sector associated
with the specific error.

Additional Sense Length: Indicates the number
ofadditional sense bytes associated with the error.
For mosterrors, the additional sense length is 14,
and the additional sense bytes are defined as :

51

Additional Sense Bytes

8 Reserved

9 Reserved

10 Reserved

an Reserved

12 Additional Sense Code
13 Reserved

14 Reserved

15 Reserved

16 Reserved

17 Retry Count

18 Physical Cylinder (MSB)
19 Physical Cylinder (LSB)
20 Physical Head

21 Physical Sector

Additional Sense Code: Defines the specific error
that occurred.

Retry Count: Indicates the number of retries that
were required in the case of recovered errors
Physical Cylinder, Head, Sector: Defines the
physical sector where the error occurred.

In the case of a usage counter overflow (sense
code=$80), the additional sense length will be set
to 19, with Bytes 18-26 containing the current
values of the usage counters as shown below:

Sense Bytes for Usage Counters

18 Blocks Read (MSB)
19 Blocks Read

20 Blocks Read (LSB)

21 Seeks (MSB)

22 Seeks

23 Seeks (LSB)

24 Uncorrected Read Errors
25 Recoverable Errors
26 Seek Errors

The usage counters provide diagnostic
information compiled since the last power-on
and are cleared after being reported.

Crunching the Numbers

Now that we've got all the error information
stored in our array, we can begin to separate the
various elements and find out exactly what

COMMODORE WORLD

it to a varialbe. The sense key is |
lower four bits of Byte 2, so we need to
byte with 15 like this:

A list of the various sense keys is provided at the
endofthisarticle. Next, weneed to get the specific
error code, AKA the ‘additional sense code’
located in Byte 12. This is even easier:

(12)

Now, ifthe AV (Address Valid) bit is set, we will
probably want to know the logical block address
(LBA) where the error occurred. You can test the
AV bit by looking at array element SB%(0) and
secing ifitis greater than 127. Ifitis, then the LBA
given in Bytes 3-6 is valid. We can then calculate
and assign the LBA toa variable:

Well, now you've got the k
need in order to detect, report, and possibly
correct errors. Of course, you will have to tailor

information you

your error subroutine to provide these functions

within your program. In the next issue,
Magic will not appear in this column, since Jim
Butterfield will be taking over as the resident
Peripheral Visionary, But wewillindeed continue
elsewhere in the pages of Commodore World.

©)

Sense Keys

SCSI sense keys provide an error grouping
capability to aid in determining possible
corrective actions.

Sense Key Description

©0 (SOO) NoSense: There isno specific sense
key information to be reported
Recovery Error: The last command
was completed successfully, with
some error recovery action performed.
Details can be determined by examing
sense data.

Not Ready: The drive cannot be
accessed,

Medium Error: Command failed due
to a non-recoverable error, probably
caused by a flaw in the media or error
in the recorded data.

Hardware Error: The drive detected
a non-recoverable hardware failure.
Mlegal Request: There was an illegal
parameter in the command descriptor
block (CDB) or in the additional
parameters.

Unit Attention: A SCSI reset occurred
since the lastcommand was executed,
Data Protect: Not supported by most
SCSI devices.

Blank Check: Not supported by most
SCSI devices.

Vendor-Unique: Reserved, vendor-
specific.

Data Protect: Not supported by most
SCSI devices.

Aborted Command: The command
was aborted before completion.
Equal: Not supported by most SCSI
devices.

Volume Overflow: Not supported by
most SCSI devices.

Miscompare: Not supported by most
SCSI devices.

Reserved

01 (S01)

02 ($02)

03 ($03)

04 ($04)

5 (S05)

96 (S06)
97 (S07)
98 (S08)
99 ($09)
10 (SOA)
11 (SOB)
12 (SOC)
13 (SOD)
14 (SOE)

15 (SOF)

(a4

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Sense Codes

‘The following list provides a description of the
most common error codes. Fora complete listing
of all codes supported by a particular drive
mechanism, you must consult the manufacturer's

programming manual forthe specificSCSI device.

Sense Code Description

000 ($00) There is no error to be reported

001 (S01) No index/sector signal +

©02(SO2) No seek complete

003 ($03) Write Fault

004 (S04) Drive not ready

06 (SO6) —_No Track © found

016 (S10) ID CRC or ECC error

17 ($11) Unrecovered read error

018 ($12) No address mark found in ID field

019 ($13) No address mark found in data field

020 ($14) No record found

©21(S15) Seek positioning error

023 ($17) Recovered read data with retries

024 ($18) Recovered read data with ECC

025($19) Detect list error

©26(S1A) Parameter overrun

©28(S1C) Primary defect list not found

30 (S1E) Recovered ID with ECC correction

032 ($20) Invalid operation code

033 ($21) _ Illegal logical block address (LBA)

936 ($24) _ Illegal field in CDB

037 ($25) Invalid LUN

038 ($26) _Invalid field in parameter list

041 ($29) | Power-on or SCSI bus reset
occurred

042 (S2A) Mode select parameters changed

50 (S32) —_No defect spare available

064 (S40) RAM Failure

O66 (S42) Power-on diagnostic failure

068 ($44) _Internal controller error

069 ($45) —Select/reselect failed

070 ($46) —_ Unsuccessful soft reset

071(S47) SCSI bus parity error

072 (S48) Initiator detected error

128 (S80) Overflow on Usage Counter error

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Issue 4

How to Type In Program Listings Appearing in
Commodore World

While Commodore World currently doesn't make it a habit of publishing
type-in programs, a number of our columns do require entering sample
routines. For this purpose, we have created our CHK-LIST utility for the
Commodore 64 and 128. utility uses a 16-bit CRC checksum method
to verify that you have correctly entered each program line, and that each
of the characters in the program lines are in the correct order.

You'll notice that program listings appear with a column of values to the
left of the program lines. These values are the CHK-LIST values and are not
to be entered as part of the program. A similar set of values are generated
by the CHK-LIST utility to allow you to verify that everything has been
entered correctly.

Enter the CHK-LIST program from BASIC. You can use either a C-64 or
aC-128 computer. Ifyou use a C-128, it can be in either 64 or 128 mode. Be
sure to enter each line carefully to avoid mistakes—until you actua
CHK-LIST working, finding errors in program entry w
you have finished entering the program, be sure to SAVE a copy to disk
before you attempt to RUN it, just in case. Ifyou aren’t familiar with how to
save a program to disk, you can use the following command:

SAVE"CHK-

A454 F=ABS (PEEK (65533) = 2?M=49152>TFFTHE
A864

6E2F | 12 C=0:PRINT“ {CLR/HOME}WORKING";

E35@ | 20 READD: IFD=-256THEN4O

AD2@ | 30 C=C+D: IFD<OANDF=OTHEN20

3316 | 31 IFD<@THEND=0-D:M=M-1

@7FO | 32 POKEM, D:M=M+1: PRINT"

578A | 40 PRINT: READCK: IFC<>CKTHENPRINT"ERROR I
N DATA STATEMENTS! ":END
5@ PRINT"DONE.":END
60 :
49152 DATA 165,43,-45,133,251,165,44,~-46
+ 133,252

2AE | 49160 DATA 169,0,141,36,193,-20,169,147,
32

cp5@ | 49168 DATA 210,255,32,194,192,-19,160,0,
140

cgcp | 49176 DATA 37,193,-20,177,251,133,253,20
8,3

2058 | 49184 DATA 238,37,193,-20,200,177,251,13
3,254

EAQC | 49192 DATA 208,3,238,37,193,-20,173,37,1
93,-20

6C15 | 49200 DATA 201,2,208,1,96,200,177,251

E7QE | 49208 DATA 170,200,177,251,32,205,-50,18
9,-142,169

6795 | 49216 DATA 6,133,211,-236,169,61,32,210,
255

F8r | 49224 DATA 169,32,32,210,255,160,2,177

9735 | 49232 DATA 251,32,213,192,-19,200,177,25
1,32

9734 | 4924 DATA 213,192,-19,200,177,251,240,6
732

p99D | 49248 DATA 213,192,-19,76,90,192,-19,173
,191,192,-19

AC3@ | 49256 DATA 32,167,192,-19,173,190,192,-1
9,32,167

TouseCHK-LIST, load it into your computer and type RUN, Make sure that
any program you are currently working on is saved first, or start CHK-LIST.
before you begin typing in a new program. After you have CHK-LIST in
memory and running, type NEW. You may now cither load or begin typing
the program you wish to have CHK-LIST check on, Whenever you want to
check your program, type in the appropriate SYS

command given below:

C-64 or C-128 in 64 mode:
C128 in 128 mode:

$49152
364

Note that when typing in listings, some special characters will appear in
for example, (CLR/HOME} means that you should enter the Clear
vhich is done by holding down the SH
Other times youmay

key while you press the
number ahead of the k ne, such
s you should press the key indicated
the number of times shown. Most special keys are easy to identify, since the
text shown will generally match the text on the key. Exceptions are the space
bar {SPACE}, and cursor keys which include directions ((CRSR UP}, {CRSR
DN}, {CRSR Land {CRSR RT}). Be sure to use the correct key combinations
such as <CTRL><2> for (WHT).

CHK-LIST (cont.)

49264 DATA 192,-19,169,13,32,210,255,165
7253

49272 DATA 133,251,165,254,133,252,238,3
6

49280 DATA 193,-20,173,36,193,-20,201,20

DATA 76,18,192,-19,162,0,189,1,193
DATA 240,6,32,210,255,232,208,245,

DATA 228,255, 261,13,208,249,32
DATA 228,255,208,251,76,8,192,-19,

DATA 106,106,106,106,32,180,192,-1
DATA 32,180,192,-19,96,41,15,170,1

DATA 20,193,-20,32,210,255,96,0,0

DATA @,@,169,@,141,190,192,-19,141

DATA 191,192,-19,169,33,141,192,19

2,-19,169

A7D7 | 49360 DATA 16,141,193,192,-19,96,162,8,7
2

6040 | 49368 DATA 41,127,77,191,192,-19,141,191
,192,-19

49376 DATA 24,14,190,192,-19,46,191,192,
-19,144

49384 DATA 18,173,192,192,-19,77,190,192
7719,141

49392 DATA 190,192,-19,173,193,192,-19,7
7,191,192,-19

49400 DATA 141,191,192,-19,104,10,202,20
8,215
c5 | 49408
49416

DATA 96,13,80,82,69,83,83,32
DATA 60,82,69,84,85,82,78, 62

49424
49432
49440

DATA 13,13,13,0,48,49,50,51
DATA 52,53,54,55,56,57,65,66
DATA 67,68,69,70,0,0,-256,37944

Volume 1, Number 4

53

COMMODORE WORLD

Carrier Detect

By Les Souga

SY,

A PRIMER FOR OFF-LINE MAIL READING

Since this issue is dedicated to the subject of
telecommunications, I thought I'd cover a topic
that involves both on-line time and off-line time.
Many people, until they try it, are intimidated by
the terms used and the variety of programs that
areusedin conjunction with offline mail reading.
Thus, I'll illustrate why reading mail this way i
convenient by taking a look at the alternative;
then I'll explain what off-line mail reading is and

show you the steps involved.

On-line Reading

When I bought my first modem, I spent hours
tying up my phone line calling bulletin boards,
playing games, downloading files and
participating in the mes reas. There's

something very exciting about reading someone
else's comments, then responding with ideas
opinions of your own... and then coming back
later Lo read responses to your own posts,

Most systems are arranged so that messages

and

about one topic are separated from messages on
other topics. This makes it easy to find others
who enjoy similar interests to share ideas with.
You may get new information, and sometimes
argue over thefiner points of yourmutualinterest.
It’s fun, addicting, and—time consuming.

he time aspect of romping around bulletin

boards and responding to messages, or just
enjoying them from an interested third party
point of view, isimportant ina couple of different

ways. When you log onto to a BBS, unless you've
been given some kind of super SysOp status, you
usually havea setamount of time available on the
system. There’salsoonly 24 hoursinaday, during
which you are usually expected to eat, sleep and

work; this often comes in direct conflict with your

COMMODORE WORLD

on-line time. Reading mail off-line allows you to
havea life whilestill keepingup with themessage
on the bulletin boards. Italso means you can use
more ofyouron-linetimedoingother things. Not
to mention the fact that when you read mail
off-line, morepeoplecancallthebulletin board—
and that keeps the SysOp happy.

Off-line Reading

Off-line mail reading involves calling the BBS,
downloading a packet which has all the messages
init from areas that you select. Once off-line, you
‘am or two to “process” the messages.
Then you can read the messages and reply to
them just as if you had called the BBS and went
into the message base todo thesame thing. When
you're done, if you've created any replies, you

use a prog!

“pack” these into a single file to upload to the
BBS, The system you call processes this file, and
puts each mes

e into the appropriate area.

First Things First

Before you can consider reading mail off-line,
you'll need to obtain an off-line mail reader (OLR
from hereon) first, such as QWKie for the C-64 or
QWERR128 for the C-128. QWKRR128 was
reviewed ina previous issue of Commodore World,
sol'llconcentratemostofmy comments on using
instead, Check the sidebar for a list of

ou can download that are either necessary
or helpful for mail reading. Along with the OLR,
you'll needa utility to dissolve mail packets; these
packets are compressed by the mail door, and
must be “unpack” or dissolved before the OLR
can read the messages. One file that both 64 and
128 users may need is CSXO1.SDA, which is used
by other files mentioned in the sidebar.

54

‘To make things easy on yourself, | suggest
setting up a work disk with the OLR program
(and any files it must have to operate), and the
program(s) you will be using to dissolve your
mail with. If you only have one disk drive, you
should download your mail packet onto this disk,
If you have more than one disk drive,
download your mail packet to one disk drive, and
have your work disk in another.

Mail Door Options

Once you have an OLR and a program to handle
unpacking the mail, you can download your first
mail packet. Call the BBS, and find the mail door.
Commodore OLR's, at this point in time, are
QWK packet mail readers, so if you are asked by

veg

the mail door what style of mail packet you wish
to receive, be sure to select "QWR", ora “QWR”
mail door, Before downloadinga packet, you will
need to tell the mail door how you want your
m ive it. One of
the first considerations is how the mail is packed,
The program mentioned above, CSX01, allows
us Commodore users to dissolve files which are
compressed using the MS-DOS ARC format.
Using other programs, we can also make use of
PKZIP 1,02 files, although many bulletin boards
only offer PKZip 2.04g, which as yet, there aren't
any program: lable that will let us dissolve
these. ARC, or PKARC is probably the most
common! jable “Compression” or “packer”
for mail doors, andifyou'renotsure which version
of PKZip the door uses, this is the safest choice.
How much mail can you handle? Most, but not
all, mail doors offer a couple of choices on how
much mail you wish to receiveata time. Thisisan
ally if you hi

ou want to recei

ges and how

important consideration, espec

Issue 4

single 1541 or 1571 disk drive. Because you'll
need room on the disk for other filesinvolved, it’s
probably best to err on the safe side rather than
risk not having enough disk space to rea
ma

ad your
For 1541 users, I recommend setting up so
you will receive a maximum of 100 messages per
packet; 1571 users can probably handle up to
about 300 messages in a packet.

Other mail door options include whether or
not to include bulletins, news, and other text
files. Whether you select to download these
depends on the amount of disk space you have,
andwhetheryou haveaninterestin reading these,
Youmay also havea prompttoselect the protocol
you wish to use when transferring mail. Another
option involves whether the CONTROL,DAT file
should be small or large; answer with “small”. If
you are using QWKie for your OLR, se
include “.NDX" files in your mail packet.

Naturally, you won't want to download all the
mail from the BBS, so most mail doors allow you
toselect only those conferences you wish toreceive
mail from. Some allow extra options, such as the
ability to download only messages to you, or to
download all messages from a conference. What
you select here is up to you, how much time you
and of course, how much disk
space you have available.

Now you can download your mail packet, and
on future calls to the bulletin board, you will not
need to change your settings again unless you
decide you want to change something you've
The mail door saves your
as well as keeps track of
Iready downloaded.

have to read mai

previously se
preferences for you,
messages that you've a

Dissolving Your Mail

Which program to use to dissolve your mail with
depends upon which method ofeompression you
chose for your QWK packet, QPX and QPX64,
along with QWKIE.DE-ARC, included with
QWKie, all dissolve mail that was compressed
with PKARC, using CSXO1. Unless you're using
QWKIE.DE-ARC, youwon'tactually “see” CSXO1
in use, but without this utility program on the
same disk with the dissolver pro; uwon't
be able to dissolve your PRARCed mail pa
C-64 users can also use QPE to dissolve PRARCed
mail, ot if you've downloaded a ZIPped mail
packet, you can use UNZIP64.

Regardless of which program you use, be sure
toread thedocumentation forthe program before
using it, This would also be a good time to read
theinstructions that comewith theOLR program.
Theonly real way tolearn how touse the programs
are to use them, but you will be way ahead of the
crowd if you read and have the documentation
rightnext toyouasyouuse the OLR. Afterawhile,

Volume 1, Number 4

it becomes “old hat", but until then, keep the
instructions nearby so you can look up anything
that seems confusing.

Follow the instructions with the program you
are using to dissolve the mail packet, and begin
the process of unp ail. When
finished, you will ha ES.DAT,
CONTROL.DAT, and possibly some other files
on your disk, such as the above mentioned .NDX
files and news or bulletin files. When the mail
packet is dissolved, if you've used QPE, QPX or
QPX64, the offline mail reader pro,
load automatically ifyou've placed it on the si
disk as you've specified when you run the
program, Otherwise, you will have to load the
OLR separately.

Once the OLR is loaded, you will probably
need to tell it which disk drive, and or CMD
directory it will find the mail packet files in and
which drive or directory it should wri
replies to. You may
time, Using QWKie, when you select to read your
mail, there is a short delay while the program
accesses and indexes the mail packet. When
finished, you are presented with a menu listing
the conferences you selected to read mail from
before downloading your mail packet. Ifyou hay
personal mail and a “PERSONAL.NDX" file was,
dissolved in your mail packet, QWKie also has a
menu option to read your personal mail.

At this stage, you simply read the mes:

» your
‘0 need to set the date and

and answer them just as you do on the Bi
the exception that you have more time to word
your replies, or to look up information, save or
print messages of interest, and you have the abi
to quit reading and come back to it later.
Once finished reading and replying to mail,
you will need to “pack” up your replies to up
back to the BBS mail door. Ifusing QWKie either
select the built in option to ZIP replies, or quit the
program and run the external ZIP program to
pack your replies for you. Most BBS mail doors
will allow you to download your mail in ARC
format and upload your replies in ZIP format
without a hitch. It should be noted that the ZIP
format used does not actually compress the reply
packet, it simply stores it in a PKZIP format the
BBS can recognize. Now you can load your term
program, call the BBS, and upload your replies.
‘The mail door will dissolve the .REP packet and
just like a post office, will sort your mail and put
it in the conferences, just as if you had created
your replies on-line.
‘That'sallthereis to offline mail reading. While
reading your mail off-line, your phone is free so
you can call and order pizza, you can stop to eat
your dinner, or if you're a true mail addict,
your pizza while reading your mail. Ifsomething

55

comesup and you have todo something else, you
can quit and come back to it later. The first few
times you read mail off-line, it might seem
complicated, but once you become familiar with

the programs used, it becomes almost second
nature,

But watch out for “creeping conference-ism”, a
condition known to off-line mail addicts who
find themselves with extra time after beginning
to read mail offline, so the:

id more message
conferences to their mail packets. T!
them to onc

is causes

in complain of lack of time, due
wholly to their mail addiction—don't say Ldidn’t
warn you!

§)

Off-line Mail Readers & Utilities

QWkKie V3.1 C-64 Offline Mail Reader by
Arthur Moore, Shareware, $17,00(US), $19.00
(INTL). Filename: QWKIE31U.SDA

QWKRR V4.30 C-128 Offline Mail Reader by
Rod Gasson, Shareware, $15 (US), $20
(AUST) Filenames: QWKRR43.TXT,
QWKRR43A.SFX, QWKRR4ASB.SFX, and
QWKRRUT.SFX

Mail Dissolving Utilities

CSXO01.SDA (or.SFX) by Chris Smeets.
Required for any 64 or 128 utility which
dissolves PKARCed mail.

QPX64.SDA by Russell Prater. For C-64
users, Dissolves PKARCed QWK mailpackets
and loads QWKie,
UNZIPV10.SFX by Bill Lucier. For C-64 users.
May also be named UNZIPV101.SFX.
Dissolves mail packets ZIPped with PKZIP
1,02. Does NOT dissolve ZIPs created with
PKZIP 2.04g.
NZP12813.SFX by David Schmoll. 128 unZIP
program which performs the same function as
UNZIPV10.SFX, above. Included with this is
another utility named QPE.

QPE by David Schmoll. For 64 or 128 users.
A utility included with NZP12813.SFX.
Dissolves either ZIP'ed or ARC'ed QWK
packets and loads the offline mail reader.
Requires CSX01,SDA for PKARCed mail
packets, In 64 mode, it will not unZIP QWK
packets, but will unARC instead, and load
QWkie. In 128 mode, it will either unZIP or
unARC the mail packet and then load
QWKRR128.

QPX by Russell Prater and Rod Gasson.
QWK Packet Extractor. Dissolves PKARC
mail packets. Requires CSX01. Included in
QWKRRUT.SFX file.

QPA by Russell Prater and Rod Gasson
QWK Packet Archiver. Included in
QWKRRUT.SFX file. PKARC (stores) reply
packets for upload to mail doors that will not
accept ZIPped packets.

QWKIE.DE-ARC by Arthur Moore Includedin
QWKIES1U.SDA. Dissolves PKARCed mail
packets. Requires CSX01.

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in our GEOS issue it dares to decry the
benefits of Graphical User Interfaces!

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NO MATTER WHAT YOU
DO ON A COMMODORE,

DO IT WITH GEOS.

And with the whole
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From word processing to
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Do it easily.

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epee)
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Do it fast.

With a wide range of
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GEOS can operate at speeds
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quick response from newer
technology disk drives, like
the CMD FD Series™ and
store mega amounts of data

on a CMD HD Series™
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CMD

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Do it better.

GEOS has always
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Print™ for GEOS provides
output quality unrivaled by
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Do it now.

So what are you waiting
for? GEOS is ideal for most
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And there’s no better time
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GEOS™, GEOPUBLISH™, GEOPROGRAMMER™, GEOCALC™,
GEOFILE™, FONTPACK Plus'™, and DESKPACK Plus™ are

orks, and distrubuted by Creative Micro Designs,
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